


Whatever Tomorrow Brings

by getoffmyhead



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: First Time, Hockey Injuries, Incubus Sidney Crosby, M/M, Misunderstandings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-07 14:04:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19210948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmyhead/pseuds/getoffmyhead
Summary: Zhenya eventually got over the embarrassment of being turned down for sex by his incubus teammate in his rookie NHL year. He and Sid even managed to patch together a friendship afterward by never bringing it up again. Until they both got injured. Falling into a new routine around his busted knee meant spending a lot more time with Sid than he ever expected to, and suddenly Zhenya was thinking about a lot of things he would normally avoid.





	Whatever Tomorrow Brings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sevenfists](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/gifts).



> sevenfists, thank you for the prompt. It started as the runt of the litter, the idea that wasn't going to make it past a rough outline, and became an obsession. I sincerely hope you like it.
> 
> saintroux, there really aren't adequate words to thank you for your help. You truly went above and beyond. Thank you so so much!

In some ways, physical therapy replaced hockey as the cornerstone of Zhenya’s post-surgery life. He didn’t look forward to it, but it gave him a routine, a reason to get up and face the hassle of showering with his knee brace. He lost his balance getting dressed and fought with his crutches and had to get creative to get his right shoe on, all in the interest of getting out the door so Paul, his therapist, could make him suffer for an hour every morning. It was weirdly normal, not significantly different than going to practice. 

Only, therapy sessions didn’t end with laughter and yelling and insults shouted across the locker room. They ended with two gallons of ice draped over Zhenya’s knee while he lay flat on his back scrolling through his phone. And after hockey practice, he would be free to do what he wanted, whereas the end of therapy meant he would be released to his parents. The thought made him sigh, a fond kind of dread curling in his stomach. When Paul returned to take the ice off and put him back in his immobilization brace, the grown-up portion of his day would end and he would go home to let his mother treat him like a sick child. 

“You did great, Geno,” Paul said while he got him bound up in his brace. 

“Great at lay down? Do nothing?” 

Paul reached out a hand to help him sit up. “Sure enough. First star. Best I’ve ever seen.”

Paul got him situated with his crutches and walked him out to the lobby. “Same time tomorrow. Come in and we’ll stretch it out again.”

He said it every day. Zhenya nodded. His knee throbbed, but he still had two hours before he could take another round of painkillers. Paul clapped him on the back as he went through the door. His father stood up from the chair he’d been in, an English-language magazine in his hand like he could read it. 

“Ready?” his father asked.

Zhenya resisted the retort that he was obviously ready and stopped by the coat rack to get bundled up. It was a chore working around his crutches, and he cursed under his breath. His father took his crutches from him and helped him into the coat. 

“You don’t have to do everything alone all the time. That’s why we came here to help you.”

Zhenya didn’t want help. Or more, he didn’t want to need help. He shouldn’t be relying on his father to put his coat on. He was a grown man. He took the crutches back and followed his father out into the cold air to go to the car. 

His mother met him at the door. “How was it?” she asked before he got his coat off. 

“Fine.” He knew he wouldn’t get off the hook that easy, though. “It still doesn’t involve much.”

“Did they say how long you’d be looking at before you can play again?”

Zhenya fought the urge to snap at her that he didn’t even know how long it would be before he could walk. “Not yet.” He rested his weight on his left leg and leaned his crutches against the wall to pull his coat off. 

“Did it hurt a lot?”

Zhenya clenched his jaw. “Not too bad,” he lied. He still felt drenched in his own sweat from the pain, shaken and exhausted. 

“Well--your father picked up the things for dumplings. Maybe that will help.”

He didn’t see how, but he nodded and took up his crutches again. She’d always been patient with him as a child, even when he’d dented the car with hockey pucks and broken one of the apartment windows with a slapper in the backyard. He could return the favor. “I’m sure it will, Mom.”

She kept up poking and prodding at him while she made lunch, relentlessly asking question after question, never allowing any silence until Zhenya thought he might snap. He couldn’t do that, so he ran away instead. Well, hobbled away with a poorly-thought-out excuse. 

With his bedroom door locked, he heaved a free breath and let it out slowly while he retreated to lean on the foot of his bed. He pulled his phone out. It was becoming a bad habit, retreating to the screen whenever he was bored. A blessing and a curse, because at least he had the option to look at it. Some people weren’t so lucky.

He frowned at the thought and pulled up Sid’s contact. Their last text conversation popped up, date-stamped five weeks ago when Zhenya had still been in Montreal trying to figure out what was going on, why Sid was being flown back to Pittsburgh without any notice. His increasingly frantic texts hung there, unanswered. 

He’d eventually gotten filled in, not by Sid, but by the team. Sid had a concussion and a pretty bad one at that. He’d be out of the lineup for a while, a month at bare minimum. And since hockey curses rarely stopped at one piece of rotten luck, Sid hadn’t made it back before Zhenya was laid up, too. 

Zhenya wasn’t sure what would happen if he reached out again. Sid wasn’t a reliable texter on his best day, let alone when he was recovering from a concussion. He was notorious for answering people hours or sometimes days later and getting a lot of flak for it. It never really bothered Zhenya. It wasn’t like they needed to talk a lot by phone - they saw each other almost every day. Anything they needed to say could be said in person in the locker room or before a game or on the ice during practice, leaning against the glass waiting for their line to go through passing drills. 

Zhenya let his fingers hover over the touchscreen trying to think of something to say. Maybe he should call Sid instead, keep him from having to read tiny letters on a bright screen. He remembered how annoying it was to try to look at his phone during his last concussion, and it had been _mild_. And maybe Sid’s concussion was even worse, what with his--condition, and everything. Zhenya hadn’t been entirely sure that demons _could_ get concussions. 

A sharp rapping on the door made him jump. “Lunch is almost ready,” his father called.

“Okay, I’ll be right there.”

He looked back at the phone, again drew a blank on what to text, figured he’d run out of time to call, and gave up. He pocketed the phone and hobbled to the door. 

**************** 

His mother started in on the coddling early the next day while Zhenya got ready to go to rehab. “Be careful,” she said while he limped down the hall from his bedroom, freshly dressed in loose clothes. 

“Yeah, I know,” he puffed, trying to concentrate on not breaking his whole body tripping over his crutches. He paused for half a second to adjust his hands and she was on him like a worried hen. 

“Are you okay? Do you need me to get your father?”

“No, I’m fine. I’ve got it.”

He wasn’t sure what his father would do, anyway. Carry him? She hovered all the way to the door.

“Baby, your coat,” his mother fussed after him, grabbing it from the rack.

He didn’t groan, but it was a near thing. He took the coat, kissed her cheek, and did a one-legged sprint out the door. 

Paul worked him through the same passive stretches he’d done all the days prior, loosening the rebuilt tendons and stretching his flexibility. He seemed really pleased with Zhenya’s progress, saying something about degrees of motion while he pushed Zhenya’s knee back. Zhenya’s concentration got lost in the pain so he missed most of what Paul said, but it sounded positive. 

Therapy ended, as usual, with a huge pack of ice draped over Zhenya’s knee while he stared up at his phone. He suddenly remembered his impulse to reach out to Sid and opened the contact again. Maybe Sid wouldn’t answer. He was good about following rules, and if he wasn’t supposed to be texting, he wouldn’t. If nothing else, Zhenya could join the locker room teasing next time they started in on Sid for his texting etiquette. 

_Alive?_

He sent the text and then opened Facebook, prepared to scroll mindlessly for the remaining eighteen minutes of his ice time. 

To his surprise, Sid’s reply popped up immediately. _Hanging in there. You?_

Zhenya’s stupid heart did the fluttering thing that happened when Sid treated him like he was special. Nobody else got immediate responses out of him. Zhenya took a picture of the ice over his knee and sent it as a reply with a bunch of frowning emojis.

 _Ouch_. Sid sent a frowning emoji of his own, a rare splash of color in a Sid communication. 

_Text is OK?_ He had no idea where Sid was at in his recovery, so he felt obligated to ask. 

The response wasn’t as instant. Zhenya’s ice timer counted down to ten minutes while he waited, then Sid replied. _Sometimes_.

So, not really. Zhenya hesitated to type anything back if Sid wasn’t supposed to be looking at the screen. But if he was feeling rebellious enough to text, he must be really bored. Zhenya didn’t want to abandon him to his tedium.

He thought of his mother waiting for him at home, well-meaning but making him crazy and the long day of not doing much that lay before him when he left therapy. 

_U home?_

_Yeah. Did you want to come over?_

He’d definitely been considering it, but Sid’s quick and eager request solidified his decision. _Yes_.

Sid sent him another emoji, this one smiling. 

Then he just had to convince his dad about the change of plan. He didn’t think it would be difficult. His parents loved Sid. Even if they knew he was an actual sex demon, Zhenya didn’t think their esteem would be diminished at all. To them he was just a very nice boy who always tried hard to say a couple of new words in Russian every time he met them again.

Zhenya brought it up as soon as they were in the car. “Can you drop me off at Sid’s? I want to see how he’s doing.”

“Sid?” his father asked, looking very surprised. Zhenya supposed that made sense. They’d been in town for over a week and they hadn’t seen any sign of Sid and Zhenya hadn’t brought it up. 

“Yeah. He’s hurt, too.”

“Well, yeah, I knew that. But doesn’t he have a concussion? I would think he’d be on sensory limitation.”

“I’m not going over there to throw a rave, Dad. I just want to check on him.”

For as long as his father hesitated, Zhenya started to think he would say no. Zhenya was getting a heated argument all spooled up in his head in response when his father finally said, “Alright, sure. We can swing by. Just be careful around him.”

Zhenya told his dad the gate code and got dropped off at the front door. 

“I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” his father said. “Just text when you’re ready.”

“Will do, thanks.”

Zhenya tucked the crutches up against the sore spots they were creating under his arms, winced his way up to the door, and raised his hand to knock. The door unlocked before he could and swung open to reveal Sid, squinting a little against the sunlight. “Hey, G,” he said with a smile as genial as ever. “Long time no see.”

“Hi, Sid.” 

Sid looked behind him to where the sedan was driving off with his father behind the wheel. “Was that your dad? He’s not staying?”

“God no, that why I’m come here. For hide.”

Sid’s grin got even brighter. “Parents driving you crazy, eh?” he asked while he stepped back to let Zhenya into the house. 

“So crazy. Like, can’t have one second alone. I hurt my knee, not get cancer.”

Sid chuckled. “Well, feel free to hide out here whenever. Want a soda or something?”

“Yes, please.”

They settled in on Sid’s comfy couch in his dimly-lit den. Zhenya briefly tried to remember if it had always been so dark and thought not. It probably had to do with photosensitivity or something, but Zhenya wasn’t going to ask. He was sure Sid wanted to talk about concussion protocol even less than Zhenya wanted to talk about rehab. 

Sid cocked a half grin at him. “It’s been a while, huh? What have you been up to? Besides the, uh, obvious.” He gestured sympathetically to Zhenya’s knee.

Zhenya shrugged. “Now, just sit down, play game. Eat.”

Sid looked entranced by the banal answer. “What game?”

“Some different games--like Halo. Black Ops. Anything.”

“That new Halo looks awesome. I didn’t get around to buying it when it came out.”

Of course he didn’t buy it. Zhenya bought it. Why would Sid need a copy? He knew Zhenya would always have it with him on roadies, just like Sid would always have his XBox. They should have been playing it together. 

But Halo: Reach had come out in December while they were playing a bunch of home games, and Sid got hurt in January. The trip to Montreal would have been their first time playing it, if Sid hadn’t flown home so abruptly. The game had been burning a hole in Zhenya’s bag he was so ready to get it loaded up. It had stayed there, in its original packaging, until he finally broke it open during his pre-surgery days, when all he could do was pop painkillers and wait for the swelling to go down enough to operate.

“Is it weird not having Master Chief?” Sid asked. 

“Yeah, pretty weird. No Cortana, too,” he pouted, missing the mostly naked female artificial intelligence who narrated the previous Halo games. “But is good, different guns and stuff.”

“Different guns? I thought it was a prequel. So like--worse guns? Wouldn’t they be less advanced?” Sid laughed. 

“No, it’s just like--okay.” He gave Sid a rundown of story mode, trying not to spoil anything major while giving an idea of how it differed from the other games in the series beyond superior graphics. Sid followed every word with bright-eyed interest, even though the plot wasn’t exactly unpredictable. Zhenya shrugged when he’d told him most of the basics, but stopped short of the ending so Sid could still play it and be engaged. “I think probably it’s better co op. You can come over, if you want to play.”

Sid’s easy expression flickered and he looked away. “Yeah, maybe.” It was a deflection that said a lot. Of course, Sid couldn’t play. He couldn’t even turn the lights up in his den. Zhenya felt like an ass for bringing it up. 

“Is probably bad idea,” he said, trying to backtrack. “You come over, my mother just treat you also like a baby.”

“I’m sure she’s just trying to help,” Sid said diplomatically. 

“So you want? Perfect. You come, she can feed you and say, oh poor Sid, poor head.”

“Maybe I will, eh?” Sid said with a challenging smirk. 

Zhenya snorted. “Please. You will hate.”

Sid huffed an acquiescent laugh. “Yeah. Probably. But you have to admit, it’s got to be nice to have the company, not be stuck in a big empty house alone.”

Zhenya looked over at him, and Sid fidgeted under the scrutiny. Sid had been alone in his house for a long time, what with the injury and the not practicing and everything. Surely, he’d had _some_ company, at least Zhenya would imagine so, since he probably still needed to feed. But most of his time would have been spent alone. Before Zhenya could comment, Sid charged on. 

“Not that I’m complaining. I like the quiet.” The liar. He’d lived with Mario in his house full of kids and frequent guests for years to keep the quiet at bay. Sid hated quiet. 

“Quiet is nice,” Zhenya agreed just to keep the peace, slumping back into the couch. It was so comfortable. He never wanted to move. Maybe he and Sid could trade places for an afternoon. His mother could have someone to fuss over who wouldn’t mind and Zhenya could have a long stretch of silence. 

“I think the quiet is a little too nice, eh? You’re falling asleep,” Sid said, nudging him in the hip with a toe. He’d pulled his feet up on the couch while Zhenya’s eyes were closed. Briefly. For thinking. 

“No, I’m awake,” Zhenya protested. His tongue moved slow and his eyelids felt heavy, but that could be anything. The dim light, the residual painkillers. He wasn’t falling asleep. 

“It’s okay. You’re, uh... You can sleep here.”

Sid sounded embarrassed. He looked it, too, when Zhenya turned to see. He wouldn’t look back, and his cheeks were coloring. Zhenya knew some people were afraid to sleep around Sid after they found out he was an incubus, ancient prejudices creeping into their imaginations and telling them he would pounce on them in their vulnerability. Most people got over it after knowing Sid for a few weeks, but maybe Sid thought Zhenya still had some hang-ups. In fairness, Zhenya’s own introduction to Sid’s--proclivities--also hadn’t started as well as he had hoped.

But Zhenya hadn’t come over to make Sid feel bad or hash out old issues. He’d come over to use him as a shelter against his parents. The last thing Zhenya wanted was to make things worse for him. So he said, “Okay.”

Sid looked sharply at him, obviously surprised. “Okay?”

“Okay. I can sleep. Five minutes only. Recharge.”

“Five minutes isn’t much of a recharge.”

“Ten minutes, then.” His eyes were closing. He smiled at the sound of Sid’s laugh, which sounded a little tense, maybe nervous. Zhenya wasn’t sure. But he was laughing and that was the important part. 

Zhenya jerked awake to the buzzing of his phone with Sid’s feet jammed under his thigh and looked over to find him also passed out, flat on his back with an arm dangling off the couch. Harmless. Zhenya pulled his phone out sluggishly. 

“Hey, Dad. Sorry. I’m ready when you are.”

“Alright, no rush. Mom just wanted to know if you were coming home for lunch.”

“Yeah, I can.”

“Okay, I’m heading that way. Invite Sid, too.”

“Sid doesn’t want to come eat Russian food, dad.”

At the sound of his name, Sid sat up and squinted at him. 

“See you in a few,” Zhenya said and hung up. 

“Your dad?”

“Yes, have to go, sorry.”

Sid pulled his toes out from under Zhenya and stood up, then reached down to offer his hands to help him up. Sid gathered his crutches, too, and handed them over. 

When they got to the door, Sid shoved his hands in his pockets and offered a weak grin. “Thanks for stopping by, G.” He said it like Zhenya was leaving forever, a long goodbye. Zhenya thought of the look on Sid’s face when he talked about his quiet, empty house, and made up his mind to offer.

“Maybe I come again tomorrow. Same time, after PT.”

A hopeful smile twitched onto Sid’s mouth. “Really?”

“Sure. If you want.”

“Okay. Yeah, see you then.”

************** 

Zhenya couldn’t tell whether the next day’s physical therapy went better only due to his injury’s improvement or because he had something to look forward to afterward. His knee still popped and groaned and hurt, but Paul got him up to twelve rounds of different stretches and even had him sit on the edge of the table and move his leg a little. 

“Slow, easy does it,” Paul said. His hands were on Zhenya’s calf as a precaution, but it was Zhenya doing the work. He was extending his own leg with his own muscles. It hurt like hell, but it was the first indication that his leg still worked. 

He was still buzzing from the minor success when they reached Sid’s house and his father said, “Mom is making salad for lunch.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Zhenya said absently, opening the car door, intent on rushing inside to brag to Sid about his functional knee.

“Not Russian food,” his father continued.

Zhenya paused in his struggle to get out of the car without getting tangled in his crutches and looked back at his father, perplexed about what he was getting at. 

“So you can invite Sid. She wants to see him.”

Zhenya definitely should have seen this coming, should have known his efforts to escape would turn on him--his mother was certainly chomping at the bit to mother Sid just as much as she’d been mothering Zhenya. 

“Okay. I’ll see if he can come.” 

Zhenya dragged his body up to the door, which fell open as he approached. Sid waved over his shoulder to Zhenya’s dad and looked Zhenya up and down while he winced his way inside.

“You need pads for those things,” Sid said, nodding at the crutches. 

“Yes, thank you,” Zhenya grumbled.

Sid closed the door behind them and shut them into his dim, peaceful world.

“My father ask if you come to lunch.”

He thought Sid would jump at the invite, the way he’d skirted around saying he was lonely. To Zhenya’s surprise, Sid grimaced and shrugged. 

“Ah, probably not today, G. Sorry.”

“It’s no problem. What’s happen?”

“Just, like, normal stuff. New normal.”

“What’s that mean?”

Sid shrugged again, clearly planning to be tight lipped about it. “You can tell them it’s a headache. Most people understand that.”

It was frustratingly vague, but observing Sid, Zhenya thought he could get a better idea of the symptoms. He was walking close to the wall, carefully placing his feet. Like he was on a boat, trying to keep his balance while the deck pitched on the waves. 

Zhenya stopped in the hall, suddenly feeling guilty about his decision to come interrupt Sid’s recovery routine. In a day, he’d gone from seeming totally normal to being clearly dizzy and unwell. “Sid, I can go.”

“No,” Sid said, carefully turning back. “Come on, man. This stuff is going to happen either way. Nothing’s going to change that.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m really sure.”

“Okay. If you want, I stay.”

Sid’s shoulders sagged like he was so relieved, which buoyed Zhenya’s mood right back up. It was nice to know that, even when Sid didn’t want to see anyone or go anywhere, even when his head was bothering him, he still wanted Zhenya around. Maybe they’d gotten off to a rocky start, never become quite as close as Zhenya had wanted, but Sid wanted him around now in his darkest hour, which felt pretty special. 

The den looked even dimmer than the previous day.

“So, I was thinking,” Sid said, crossing the room to the entertainment center. Surely, he wasn’t planning on turning the TV on. Zhenya bit down hard on his urge to transform into his mother and fuss at him about it. Sid didn’t touch the TV. He picked up a box. “I can’t play video games yet, but I can do this.”

It was a board game. A sailboat crashed through the waves on the cover of the box. The corner proclaimed it was for ‘Ages 6 and Up.’ 

“Is for kids?” Zhenya asked. He wasn’t sure if Sid was fucking with him. It didn’t seem like it, but he had a well-trained skeptical streak after spending years surrounded by pranksters. 

“I guess. Today, it’s for people who can’t read without getting double vision,” Sid said with a little shrug. “It’s just pictures. I think I can manage it. What do you say?”

It was no Halo. Most of the action took place in their imaginations as they guided their ships across the treacherous seas represented on the board, careful not to cross paths with one of the many sea monsters. Zhenya lost the first two rounds before realizing Sid kept intentionally sending the beasts his way. He paid him back in the third game, got him cornered on the edge of the world with three behemoths around him and nowhere to run.

“That was a good game,” Sid said mildly with the same wet-cat look on his face he wore when he had to shake hands after losing a playoff round. Zhenya dialed up his smugness to really rub it in. 

“Such good game. I like it a lot. How you find?”

“My sister. She’s always finding weird stuff like this. She brought it down in the fall and it never made it home with her. Guess it’s mine now.”

“I guess,” Zhenya said, distracted by a sudden curiosity about Taylor’s parentage. As far as he knew, she was Sid’s full-blown sister, but surely she wasn’t also a demon, or at least she had never seemed like one. That seemed like a thing Zhenya would know about her by now, probably. Maybe Sid was adopted. Not through an agency, of course, but maybe Sid’s parents found him in a basket on a river or something and raised him as a human. Maybe that explained why he seemed so normal.

“You look like you’re thinking too hard.”

Zhenya let it go and he could feel his face relax. “Probably, always,” he said with a rueful smile that turned into a stifled yawn. 

“Uh oh. Is it past naptime?” Sid teased. 

“Maybe. You tell me.” If Sid was going to make a routine out of everything, it would have to be his job to keep an eye on the clock. And Zhenya felt comfortable enough, at least, after he’d fallen asleep with Sid the day before and nothing at all of note had gone down. Maybe Sid was getting his fix somewhere else.

Zhenya sat back on the couch while Sid packed up the game and put it away, talking all the while--something about another game related to the one Taylor bought. Zhenya hummed along, providing enough encouragement to get him to keep talking. He passed out mid-sentence while fighting a losing battle to keep engaged. Sid was saying something about dragons when he lost it completely.

He woke up later, guiltily aware that he’d lost consciousness while Sid was talking to him, but he didn’t feel too terrible when he looked around and found Sid snoring on the couch’s other arm. He watched him sleep for a moment. Sid’s eyelashes fluttered against his cheek. He was dreaming, if incubi could dream. It struck him as a strange thing he didn’t know about Sid, but they’d never slept in the same room before, save the entirely boring nap the afternoon before.

Sid had a different roommate every night on the road, the only one on the roster who rotated--each guy taking his turn. Everybody, that is, except Zhenya. They’d only been put in the same room once, during Zhenya’s very first season. 

Zhenya had picked up enough talk around the locker room by the time he and Sid were roomed together in Edmonton to know _something_ was expected of him, he just wasn’t totally sure what. He’d caught snippets of stories through the childish giggling of his teammates, some odd bragging about how wild things had gotten the night before from the less modest guys after they roomed with Sid. It was definitely _something_ sexual. Talbot’s crude gestures verified that for him. 

As with a lot of things he didn’t fully understand back then, Zhenya had smiled along and put it on the back burner, something he didn’t have to deal with until later. He kept his focus on the words of the trainers more than his teammates, more interested in taking the NHL by storm than what depraved act he would need to partake in if and when his turn came to feed the--demon, or whatever Sid was. Demons weren’t really a topic of polite conversation in Russia, and Zhenya had never learned a lot about the specifics, but he’d figured out that much, at least, that they were all sleeping with Sid to feed him in some way--a demon that fed on sex. It wasn’t recreational, though they did all seem to enjoy it. 

Upon finding out that it was finally happening--he was finally set to room with Sid--he tried to ask Seryozha about what he should do. Seryozha was one of the guys who didn’t talk about it afterward, but he had roomed with Sid before. All of them had. 

“I’m roomed with Sid tonight,” he said over lunch, hoping he wouldn’t have to do more than that to prompt Seryozha to tell him the details of the situation. 

Seryozha coughed and took a drink of water. “And?”

“And--he’s a demon.”

“Incubus, but yes,” Seryozha said without looking at Zhenya’s face. “He’s not dangerous, if you’re worried--”

“No, I know that.” If Sid wanted to hurt him, there were much better ways to go about it than rooming with him. Besides, all the guys made it clear nothing painful would happen. Talbot would have complained for a week if anything Sid did to him had hurt; he was a huge baby. “But what’s it like?”

Seryozha’s face became a sunrise of blotchy color and he cleared his throat. “It’s nothing. Just go to the room and he’ll take care of it.”

“He’ll take care of--”

“Everything. He’ll do everything. You can just--pretend he’s a normal roommate.”

Zhenya frowned at that. He wanted to argue. He didn’t want to be a passive participant, like Seryozha said. He wasn’t even sure how that would work. Surely, the guys didn’t just _lay_ there. He’d been with people who just flopped on the bed like dolls and let him go to town. It was no fun. He didn’t think Sid would be happy with that, and well, he wanted to make Sid like him. He wanted to do a good job. 

But Seryozha was very obviously done having the conversation. He turned the subject away to football and his face returned to its normal color. 

Zhenya’s thoughts followed him to the Oilers’ arena and accompanied him during his warmups. Maybe he could learn how to say something fun to get them off on the right foot. He couldn’t ask Seryozha, obviously, but maybe he could learn the English for--he drew a blank. How wild was too wild for Sid? He could suggest a blow job, surely. That should be safe. Several of the guys had made obvious blowjob gestures. Probably blowing Sid wouldn’t be too bad, Zhenya figured. Maybe it would even be fun. 

He was still mulling it over on the stationary bike when Sid came to warm up his legs on the nearest treadmill. Zhenya watched him take long, even strides, steady as a metronome, and blushed, thinking of the other activities a good rhythm could benefit. Maybe he didn’t want to suggest limiting them to just mouth stuff. 

Flower caught him in the hall as he exited the cardio room and gestured him into tagging along, a very realistic looking fake tarantula in his hand. He fell into Flower’s wake, clipping along through the halls at a frantic walking pace to the Oilers’ training rooms. Flower stationed him at the door, a familiar task he’d been asked to perform many times since joining the Penguins, and he kept lookout while Flower put the spider deep inside a very nice looking Italian leather loafer that Zhenya could only hope belonged to someone Flower knew.

As payment for his guard duty, Zhenya took the opportunity on the walk back to bring up his predicament. “At hotel with Sid,” he said in painstaking English, but he didn’t have to get farther than that because Flower lit up impishly.

“Yes? You know what to do?”

Zhenya shook his head, and Flower’s grin grew. He probably should have known then he was being convinced of some transparent bullshit, but he hadn’t had years to see through Flower’s tricks yet. 

It took a lot to bridge the language barrier, both of them speaking a common second language and neither of them being particularly fluent, but Flower got the message across. He instructed Zhenya on what he should do to prepare when he got to the room, to make things easiest on Sid.

“You do these things, he will think you are--” Flower said, and gave him a bright thumbs-up. 

Zhenya followed Flowers instructions exactly when he got to the hotel that night. He got undressed while Sid showered--Flower had told him he always took a second shower after the one in the locker room--and got under the covers in the bed closest to the door. Sid’s bed. Then he waited. 

Sid started talking before he exited the bathroom, something about a baseball game, Zhenya thought. But then--and Zhenya had tried to block out the mortifying memory as much as possible because--contrary to what Flower had led him to believe would happen, Sid walked out of the bathroom and froze. It wasn’t a pleased kind of frozen. 

“Geno?”

Zhenya had tried to smile. He was a little nervous, but who wouldn’t be the first time they slept with someone, even if that someone was human? He would get over it as soon as they got down to it. 

Sid’s expression did not mirror his. He looked suspicious, maybe even a little annoyed. “Okay,” he sighed, like whatever was wrong wasn’t worth the fight. Maybe Zhenya was supposed to turn the lights off or something; maybe Sid fed better in the dark. 

Then he moved toward Zhenya’s bed, the _other_ bed.

“No, come. Do now,” Zhenya said. He was getting flustered by Sid’s apparent total brush-off. He was doing what Flower said. 

Sid was halfway to the other bed when he stopped walking. His shoulders slumped. For a beat, he looked so fucking defeated. He shook his head and said something low and kind of fast. Zhenya caught the word “prank” and wilted. Dread coiled in his stomach at the sudden thought that he’d swallowed a Flower trick hook, line, and sinker. 

But it couldn’t be. Sid really did room with a different person every night. And if they weren’t all sleeping with him, what was Seryozha so embarrassed about? He buoyed himself back up and reached out.

“No, no prank,” he tried, and Sid had looked up at him with a squinty, cautious sort of curiosity. “Come.”

“Who told you to do this?” Sid asked after a pause. He didn’t sound annoyed anymore. He almost sounded hopeful. 

Zhenya wanted to say anybody else. As soon as Flower’s name crossed his lips, Sid would be suspicious. But whatever part of the ritual he’d screwed up, he knew it would be a source of hilarity in the locker room, which meant Sid would figure it out even if he lied. He told the truth. “Flower. But--”

Sid shook his head. Annoyance flooded back into his face and he started talking a mile a minute, much too fast to understand before he stopped, hands on his hips, and offered a very sincere sounding, “I’m sorry.”

Then he started moving quickly around the room, throwing his stuff back in his bag while Zhenya stayed in bed, frozen. What had he done wrong? Seryozha had said Sid would do all the work, but surely that wasn’t a requirement. Even if Flower tricked him about the process, surely Sid couldn’t be _this_ mad that Zhenya made the first move. What was wrong with Zhenya, that Sid didn’t want him?

Sid walked out while Zhenya stared after him, baffled. Ten minutes later, he was just getting back into his clothes when Tanger stumbled in.

“What the fuck?” Zhenya asked.

Tanger shrugged. His eyes were barely open. “Sid’s crazy,” he muttered before he found the nearest bed, Zhenya’s, and collapsed face down in it.

And apparently, that was that. Sid didn’t come back. Tanger stayed, snoring away. After a while, Zhenya figured he had a new roommate. 

Zhenya had dragged himself into the locker room and sprinted out of it for weeks afterward, too embarrassed to deal with anyone. He hadn’t talked to Flower, no matter how many hang-dog looks Flower gave him. He’d barely been able to look at Sid, which didn’t help them on the ice. They struggled to connect their passes or collaborate on goals, where before they had been practically unstoppable.

The trouble continued until Sid, ever the problem-solver, took it upon himself to set their roadie gaming dates up. He had charged into Zhenya’s room talking fast enough in English that Zhenya probably couldn’t even follow it now, let alone when he knew fifty words, all while hooking the XBox up to the hotel TV. 

Zhenya had been so suspicious and defensive at the time, but in retrospect, he could see the move for what it was: a future captain trying to get his team together so they could start winning. It worked. They won the game after their very first XBox session, which was enough in Sid’s world to solidify it as a routine. 

Zhenya hadn’t given it much thought in the past few years. He had pouted about it for a while, but--Sid didn’t want to sleep with him for whatever reason. But he wanted to be Zhenya’s friend, and that was what mattered. 

But he was thinking about it now, watching Sid’s eyelids flutter open as he took in a deeper breath. Zhenya looked away from him as he woke up, but apparently not fast enough.

“What are you staring at, weirdo?” Sid mumbled, breaking into a smile as he did. Zhenya fought off the urge to get really flustered about it. It was just because he was remembering a bad time between them. Sid didn’t mean anything by it now. Besides, it _was_ pretty weird to stare at someone while they slept. 

“I’m not weird. You weird.”

“I don’t pout for three days when someone laces my skates wrong.”

Zhenya scoffed. He would, just nobody had ever done it to him. They had to Zhenya, once. “Okay, maybe. But I never make baby trainers go for old coffee because new is bad.”

“It was Starbucks. It is bad. Nobody picks Starbucks over Dunkin’.”

“But you don’t drink,” Zhenya laughed. 

“I told you, I could smell it.” Sid pushed himself up with a self-deprecating smile. The whole exchange put Zhenya at ease, reminded him that, past mortification aside, they were fine now. They had been fine for years, and they would continue to be fine, even if a tiny little nagging part of him was still bothered that Sid didn’t want to room with him like he did with everybody else. 

He left Sid’s house with promises to stop by again soon and save him from his boredom. Sid smiled without any reluctance, so Zhenya knew it was a good idea. 

It was only once he got into the car and away from Sid that he thought about it and suddenly wondered what Sid was feeding on, stuck all alone in his big house. Were there delivery services for demons who needed a steady supply of sex? If so, Sid seemed like he needed to make an appointment, because he looked a little weak.

Briefly, Zhenya wondered if he should offer to help out again, the way the team did. He and Sid were so much better at communicating now. The same thing wouldn’t happen again. 

But if it did. If Sid recoiled again, like sleeping with Zhenya was unthinkable--

Zhenya shuddered. His father looked at him sideways. 

“Cold? You’re not getting sick, are you?” his father asked.

“No, I’m fine.”

He wouldn’t be fine if Sid rejected him again, though, so he banished that idea. Surely, Sid knew he could ask for anything he needed. They were both adults now; Zhenya didn’t have to put himself out there again just to get shut down. 

******************* 

Zhenya was just starting to get the hang of the crutches when Paul told him he could stop using them. 

“As long as you wear the brace, you should be fine to walk. In fact, you should start to put more pressure on it, get it used to bearing weight again.”

“Can I drive?” he asked hopefully.

“Not a chance, bud. Start with walking. You’ll be driving again before you know it.”

Still, it was a breakthrough, and he refused to be disappointed about it. Zhenya left the crutches behind in Paul’s office with clear instructions to burn them and walked out under his own power.

Sid beamed when he saw him. “Look at you! How’s it feel?”

Frankly, it was sore and unstable, and if it weren’t for the brace, he wasn’t sure it would hold his own weight. But it was a positive sign, and he so desperately needed to feel like he was making headway. Zhenya grinned and shrugged. “Feels better,” he said without lying, because the pain was less important than progress. 

Sid followed him into the house, grinning away like he was so proud. Maybe he was just seeing a way forward for the team, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt like Sid was happy because of him, because he wanted Zhenya to feel better more than anything. 

“We should celebrate,” Sid said when they reached the den. “Break open a bottle of wine or something.”

“It’s morning.”

“I didn’t mean _now_ ,” Sid chuckled. “Like, maybe I can cook for you and your parents.”

Zhenya blew out a breath. God, that would be a feat, convincing his mother to let Sid, who she thought was terminally fucking ill, cook for them all. “I think maybe my mom be happier to cook for you. You bring wine.”

“Okay. Set it up. I’ll be there.”

“Tonight?”

“If you don’t think she needs more time to prepare.”

“She ask to bring you every single day,” Zhenya said seriously. “She always is ready.”

Sid laughed and plopped down on the couch. “Okay, sounds cool. I’m in.”

Zhenya settled in his usual spot. Sleep was already reaching for him: a warm, soft hug. 

His dreams that day were nebulous and cloudy, more feeling than vision, but they were undeniably erotic. His body lit up with desire, sexual and overpowering, and he jerked awake with his dick pressing hard against the front of his pants. 

He was immediately aware that Sid was awake. It was evident from the way he was sitting up on his end of the couch staring at Zhenya like a cat watching a bird, unblinking. He shook out of it as soon as he saw Zhenya looking back and unfolded to stand up. “Sorry.”

Zhenya didn’t know what he was sorry for, but he let it go and adjusted his dick so he could straighten up. It was already starting to flag, now that he was out of his dreams. Whatever they had been. 

Sid seemed shaken and quiet while they waited for Zhenya’s father to arrive, so much that Zhenya worried he might back out of their plans. But when the sedan pulled up, Sid said, “I’ll be there at 6, okay?”

“Sure. Need me to send dad?”

“Of course not. I can drive most of the time now. If not, I’ll take a cab.”

“Okay, I tell him you don’t want. He will be so sad.”

“Stop it,” Sid scolded. A smile pulled on his mouth. He actually walked Zhenya out to the car like a gentleman escorting a date and opened the passenger door for him, like nothing out of place had transpired, and Zhenya hadn’t awoken to the sight of Sid staring at him like he was a particularly tempting snack. Zhenya nearly curtsied, would have if his knee wouldn’t collapse. Sid glared at his mocking expression. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Sure, see you tonight.”

His mother was predictably delighted to be hosting Sid and immediately sent Zhenya’s father out to the store for groceries. When he returned, she set Zhenya to work peeling potatoes because apparently he was only crippled when he wasn’t entertaining guests. He could be pitiable on his own time. 

Sid showed up fifteen minutes early, and he brought flowers. Zhenya reached for them, but Sid pulled them back. 

“They’re for your mom.”

“She hurt me, Sid. Make me stand all day, cook food. My knee is hurt now. She can give me flowers.”

Sid played reluctant when he handed them over. He had a bottle of wine in his other hand. It looked nice, but Zhenya really wouldn’t know. He wasn’t much of a wine drinker. 

The flowers smelled fresh and lightly sweet, a complimentary assortment of snapdragons, yellow roses, and pale pink peonies. “You pick?”

“Sure, right out of the store,” Sid joked because he thought he was funny. Zhenya led him back to the kitchen where his mother was already drying her hands to grab him in a hug. 

“Look at you, poor boy. Wasting away,” she cooed, gripping his shoulders. Sid couldn’t work out as intensely as he once had, so his bulkier muscles were slimming down a bit. But Zhenya had spent a long time pretending not to notice anything in particular about Sid’s body and sure wasn’t going to translate. 

“What’s she saying?” Sid asked. 

“You look strong. You can carry thing to table.”

“Oh, that’s my job now, eh?”

“Sure, what you expect? I can hop?” He limped exaggeratedly across the kitchen for a vase, and his mother swatted at him. 

“Stop pretending like peeling potatoes broke your leg,” she scolded. 

“See?” Zhenya cried in English. “How mean she is?”

“You got a hard life, G.” Sid chuckled, even though he couldn’t understand a word that Zhenya’s mother was saying. 

“I know.”

Sid shook his head and turned to help Zhenya’s mother take things to the dining room. 

They ate with the overhead lights artfully dimmed and low music playing through a little portable speaker, Zhenya’s father’s doing, he suspected. Sid complimented the cooking through Zhenya like it was the best thing he’d eaten in a very long time. Which, considering his situation, maybe it really was. Mostly, Sid just seemed happy to be around people again, even if he didn’t understand much of what anybody said. 

At the end of the evening, Zhenya’s mom hugged Sid for a long time, cooing about his poor head and insisting that he come over for anything he needed. 

“What’s she saying?”

“You very strong,” Zhenya said without missing a beat. “She think you get better soon.”

“Oh, well. Tell her thank you.”

“She understand that, silly,” Zhenya laughed. She’d been in America enough times to know the basics. 

Zhenya walked Sid out to his car in the brisk air. He could stand the cold for a few minutes. They strolled, getting slower as they grew closer to Sid’s car. 

“You okay?” Zhenya asked, nodding to the car. 

“Oh, yeah, for sure. I only had one glass.”

Zhenya bit down hard on the urge to check on his symptoms as well, see if he was feeling dizzy or unstable. He certainly didn’t look like he felt unwell. His cheeks were getting a little pink in the cold. His lips appeared almost red from the wine. 

Zhenya watched him a beat too long, and Sid looked over with a sharp, curious expression. For a moment, he looked like he had that afternoon when Zhenya woke up, keenly, almost dangerously interested. Zhenya shivered under his gaze, which apparently broke the spell. 

“You’re cold,” Sid said, turning his eyes away. “You should get inside.”

“Okay. I see you tomorrow.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sid said. He sounded a little surprised, like they didn’t have an unspoken routine to stick to, like he thought Zhenya might have backed out. “Cool, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

************** 

It was two more weeks before Zhenya’s parents went home. During those two weeks, his days fell back into some version of his normal routine. He went to PT and afterward his father drove him home or to Sid’s house. Zhenya figured out a few more games he and Sid could play without too many words or rules to remember, and he took them along with him when Sid seemed up for it. Most days, Sid’s dim lighting combined with Zhenya’s post-therapy wind-down and he passed out on the couch, but Sid didn’t seem to mind. He seemed happy enough to join in. 

Zhenya had a few more weird dreams, always at Sid’s house, and never at night when he slept in his own bed. When it happened, he woke feeling troubled and distantly worried, the fuzzy shape of arousal fading away, still without much clarity. Each time, Sid was looking at him a little funny, the way he had the first time, but he also quickly turned his gaze aside and went on about their afternoon as if it was nothing out of the ordinary, or perhaps like he wanted to forget. At first, Zhenya worried he was starting to sleep talk and read through the side-effects of his painkillers and anti-inflammatories to make sure that wasn’t one.

After a few times of waking up with Sid’s eyes locked onto him, unreadable, Zhenya grew a little suspicious that it did in fact have something to do with Sid’s demonic nature. Maybe he could smell human arousal or something, because Zhenya was certainly radiating it, as embarrassing as that was. But Zhenya couldn’t bring himself to ask Sid about it and bring back the awkwardness between them. The incubus thing was just something he was going to have to push aside. Clearly, Sid was trying to. 

His parents weren’t terribly keen on leaving him to fend for himself, but he could use a hired driver to take him to and from physical therapy, and the rest he could do on his own. Besides, he would be driving again in a few weeks anyway. Even though they had tickets booked, they were still a bit resistant, so he pulled out the ultimate weapon. 

“I have Sid if something happens.”

Zhenya knew his parents trusted Sid, who was polite and steady and seemingly a parent’s dream. His mother cut a look at his father, who offered a resigned shrug. 

“You can’t spend all your time here watching me limp around.”

They hesitated and frowned, but they gave in. Zhenya knew they wanted to get back, even if they were worried about leaving him. He hugged them for a long time at the door before they left, hoping they could understand how grateful he was for their support. His mother cried, but she relented when his father ushered her toward the car. 

When he closed the front door, the house felt vast and very empty. He took a moment to adjust to the sound of his own footsteps on the hardwood. It took ten minutes for him to start to regret pushing them to go.

Remembering what he had told them, he slumped against the kitchen counter and texted Sid. _Parents go home today._

Zhenya assumed Sid wouldn’t be awake so early, but he was pleasantly surprised. 

_Sorry to hear that. That mean naptime is over??_

Zhenya smiled like an idiot at his phone. _Maybe. I can’t drive._

Sid didn’t answer right away, and even then it was only with a frowny emoji when Zhenya was working on getting ready to leave the house. He shook his head, gave up on his hair, and picked up his phone. 

Impulsively, Zhenya sent another text. _Come over here. Still nap._

He was in the passenger seat making idle chit-chat with his driver when the phone buzzed, and Sid sent him a thumbs up emoji. Zhenya was pretty sure that meant he was coming. 

Paul looked delighted to see him. He was waiting in the lobby leaning on the receptionist’s desk like he was being casual, but Zhenya knew he was waiting for him. He’d grown used to the dread he felt when Paul was happy to see him. It never spelled anything good.

Sure enough, Paul felt he was ready to step up to the next level. He put Zhenya through the wringer, insisting on another 30 seconds on the stability ball and “One more,” of every exercise until Zhenya’s knee threatened to give way from exhaustion more than pain. He ended the hour on a set of trembling squats, heart slamming against his ribs every time his knee popped or creaked, and even then Paul wasn’t done with him. 

“Awesome work, Geno. You’re killing it.”

Zhenya felt like he was shaking all over, head to foot. He leaned a shoulder on the wall and focused on his breathing. He didn’t feel like he had killed anything except his will to live. 

“So, I’m going to start giving you some homework.”

“Homework?” Zhenya repeated. He didn’t like the sound of that.

Paul gave him a pamphlet of at-home exercises and stretches he could do with his newfound stability. “Three times a day, then ice and rest for twenty minutes. Easy peasy.”

Easy peasy for Paul, who didn’t have to walk for fifteen minutes or perform muscle-pumping exercises to engage his calf and hamstrings with a bum knee. 

“You got this. Any questions, you have my number.” With that, Paul clapped him on the shoulder and sent him out the door. 

Zhenya got home to an empty house and thought maybe he’d misunderstood Sid’s emoji. He trudged his way into the shower and scrubbed the frustration and pain off of his skin until he felt clean and new. He only bothered with shorts to wander back out to the kitchen for a snack before he crashed for a long, well-deserved nap. 

But his kitchen wasn’t empty. Sid was there with Zhenya’s physical therapy homework pamphlet in his hand, reading it. He glanced up when he noticed Zhenya. His gaze unmistakably swept up and down Zhenya’s mostly naked body before he jerked his eyes away.

“Hey,” Sid said, not looking at him. “The door was unlocked.”

Zhenya waved off what was building to be an unnecessary apology and went to the fridge for an orange.

“Home therapy,” Sid said out loud, the title of the pamphlet. If that was all he’d gotten from it in the amount of time he’d been looking, Zhenya felt like he should be worrying more about his head. “This anything I can help with?”

“Help with what, walk?”

“Sure, maybe. I could keep you company.”

Zhenya chewed a slice of orange thoughtfully and shrugged. “If you want. After nap.”

Sid finally looked back up at him. Zhenya thought he could see the same interest in his eyes from before, but he kept them firmly up and not on Zhenya’s body. The incubus thing wasn’t a big deal, Zhenya reminded himself. They’d been taking cat naps together for weeks without incident. It was fine.

They settled on the sectional in Zhenya’s den, where the light was soft and warm, and everything seemed quiet. Zhenya was practically asleep before he hit the cushions. 

********************* 

Zhenya’s shoulders strained where he pulled the pillow tight against his mouth. He couldn’t remember why he was being quiet, but it was paramount. He turned his head. The Stanley Cup stood next to the bed, gleaming, but it wasn’t nearly the most important thing in the room. That honor belonged to Sid’s tongue, which laved against his asshole in long strokes that sent flutters up his spine with every shock. 

It felt like they’d been at it forever. Zhenya couldn’t remember what day it was or how long ago they’d won the Cup. He couldn’t even remember who they beat, but none of it mattered. Sid’s tongue worked against his hole, and he muffled his moans into the pillow until tears leaked out of his eyes. 

A hand pressed against his chest and he jumped. His chest was pushed to the bed, and Sid’s hands were parting his cheeks, so where was the hand coming from? His brain flashed alarm and sent a jolt of panic through his body. 

He woke up and snatched Sid’s wrist at the same time. “What?” he snapped in Russian before he’d totally woken up. 

Sid held very still and waited while Zhenya slowly brought himself to full consciousness. He wasn’t in a bedroom with the Stanley Cup. He was still in his den, on his sectional. His breathing slowed. 

He pried his fingers off Sid’s wrist. His face warmed up, hot at the tops of his ears, thinking of what they’d been up to in his imagination. “Sorry, I was have dream.”

“Uh, yeah,” Sid said uncomfortably, hovering, “I know. I could see.”

Oh shit. Zhenya’s slowing heartbeat jumped back into the race. “You see my dream?” His voice broke. 

“Only the ones related to sex,” Sid said simply, like that made anything better.

Of all the shit for Flower to leave out of his exaggerated explanations of Sid’s “true nature,” the fact that he was _psychic_ never came up once? Zhenya really wished he’d been nosier about it, because clearly relying on locker room talk to teach him anything of use had been a bad idea. He knew that Sid was pretty tight-lipped about his demonic inclinations, and Zhenya had wanted to, well--give him some privacy with it. But he was certainly regretting it now, stuck here alone in his house, Sid reading the sordid details straight from his mind.

“Hey, no,” Sid said with his hands up like he was trying to soothe Zhenya. “Don’t freak out. It’s normal. Trust me. Everybody dreams about this stuff.”

Not this specific stuff. Surely not everybody who had ever gone to sleep around Sid had a dream about fucking _him_ in particular. Zhenya scrambled up off the couch, but in his haste he wasn’t careful with his right foot. He stomped it down against the floor and eye watering pain shot up from his knee. “Ow, fuck,” he gasped.

“G, _relax_.” Sid’s voice was firmer this time, closer to an order. He grabbed Zhenya’s elbow and pushed him down to sit. 

How bad had the dream really been? Zhenya tried to remember, but the memory of it slipped through his grasp like tendrils of mist. There were a few standout images, though. They were bad. Really, vividly bad. There wasn’t any mistaking who he’d been dreaming of, which was what he’d perhaps hoped for--some way to wiggle out of the guilt.

“What did you do?”

“What?” Zhenya cried. He didn’t _do_ anything. He didn’t _ask_ to be dreaming about Sid. It just happened. He couldn’t control his dreams. 

“To your knee. Did you hurt yourself?”

Sid looked so earnestly worried. Zhenya wasn’t sure what was worse: the pain in his knee or the sick feeling Zhenya got when he contemplated turning this conversation about his injury back to the other thing he didn’t want to fucking talk about, this dumb sex dream that Sid had _seen_. Zhenya couldn’t do anything but stare at Sid while Sid grew tired of waiting for him to answer and reached for Zhenya’s knee. Zhenya intercepted his hand and pushed it away. “It’s fine.”

Truthfully, it was still throbbing and shooting pain up his thigh, which wasn’t a great sign. But nothing had popped. He didn’t think he’d torn anything. And he wanted more than anything to _not_ take a ride to the hospital with Sid to find out for sure.

“I’m fine.”

That much was demonstrably not true, and Sid’s sudden doubtful expression showed how much he bought it. Zhenya felt a rush of anger at him. Why didn’t he just leave, pretend he didn’t see anything at all and go? Why wake Zhenya up so he could be embarrassed and upset?

“What do you want?” Zhenya asked him tersely.

Sid’s eyes got big at that. “Nothing. I want what you want.”

To be out of this situation forever? Perfect. 

Sid took a breath and looked pained and tried again. “I just want you to know that it’s fine. Everything is totally fine. Nothing’s changed.”

“Yeah, I know,” Zhenya said testily. He’d understood what they were, and what they significantly were _not_ , for a long time, ever since that horridly embarrassing night when Zhenya had practically _thrown_ himself at Sid, willing to take one for the team, and gotten what for it? Nothing but a weird, awkward rejection. Who knew what Sid liked to feed on? Whatever it was, it wasn’t Zhenya. One dream didn’t change that. Sid seriously thought he had to wake his ass up to remind him?

“Good,” Sid said, and he looked relieved. “Okay. Um, I’ll just go get some ice. For your knee.”

And then he was gone. Zhenya hunched over and covered his face with both hands. Sid came back with an ice pack and held it out to him. Zhenya took it miserably. “Thanks.”

“Are you sure it’s not hurt?”

No. “Yes. Very sure. It’s fine.” 

“Okay. Because if you need me to take you--”

“No, Sid. I don’t need. I put ice now and in like ten minutes it’s fine. You can go home.”

“Oh. Right. Sure. I guess a walk is probably kind of a bad idea now, huh?”

Zhenya fought to keep his eyes from rolling out of his head. In so many ways, yes. “Probably.”

“Well. I’ll just head out then.” He still seemed worried, but also like he was trying not to be obvious about it. He stepped toward the door and then halted. “But, uh. We’re cool, right?”

“Yes,” Zhenya lied. “Cool.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Zhenya jerked his head up, but Sid was already gone. Tomorrow? What? He nearly called after him, but stopped. Zhenya couldn’t stand to bring Sid back and face him just yet, so he was left to ponder the meaning himself. 

Zhenya could only think of two conclusions: Sid was saying it out of habit or his adherence to routines was borderline compulsive. Zhenya knew which one he’d put money on, which meant he could probably plan on coming home from rehab tomorrow to find Sid already there, taking up space in his house and his head. He slumped back against the couch with a groan and asked the ceiling, “Are you kidding me?”

************** 

“What did you do to yourself?” Paul exclaimed the next day when he saw the sudden drop in Zhenya’s range of motion. 

“Nothing! I just step wrong one time.”

Which earned him a lecture about candor with his rehabilitation team, an early stop to the day’s routine, and orders to get to the doctor asap for a new MRI. 

“You can come back when they give you the clear.”

Well. If he was spending the day in a doctor’s office, at least it gave him an out with Sid so he wouldn’t have to face him again. He got everything set up from the lobby of his PT clinic and texted Sid not to come. Sid responded right away, asking to be kept in the loop. Mortified as Zhenya still was, it was a nice reassurance that they would probably recover. They had once and they would again. 

It took his medical team six hours to conclude that nothing major had happened and that he could resume rehab after another day or two of ice and rest to get the swelling down. 

“No more tap dancing, huh?” his orthopedic surgeon said with a wink before he sent Zhenya out the door. 

It was strange coming home in the middle of the afternoon instead of late morning and even stranger to limp into an empty house. Between Sid and his parents, Zhenya had gotten used to having someone there when he opened the door. Where he’d always before entered his solitude with relief, he now found himself feeling empty. Maybe he needed to get a dog. 

He set up on his couch, ready to go back to his pre-surgery routine of rest, ice, and marathoning movies about giant robots. 

The setback gave him a couple of days away from Sid, which he sorely needed. He would have taken even more time, but the resumption of rehab on the third day meant Sid would probably want to restart their naptime routine. He actually considered lying, telling Sid he couldn’t restart physical therapy right away, but that would just make him worry and probably bring him over anyway. So, he braced and sent the text that he was going to therapy at the normal time and returned home to the familiar sight of Sid’s car in his driveway. 

He took as long as he could draw it out to get up to the door and go inside. He found Sid in the den and got a second to observe him before Sid noticed his presence. He was on the sofa with his socked feet on the coffee table and his hair messed up from taking off his cap. He looked cozy and soft and perfectly at ease in Zhenya’s house, like nothing had ever gone wrong between them. Twice. Maybe he really didn’t care if Zhenya lusted after him. Maybe that was just par for the course of being an incubus. After all, he’d never had any issue convincing twenty-plus mostly-straight guys to fuck him during the season. Maybe he had pheromones or something that made him irresistible and he was just--used to it. 

Zhenya still couldn’t imagine sleeping around him again. Even if Sid didn’t mind, he might feel the need to have another talk about it, which would inspire Zhenya to flee the country. So, after they settled in, he waited for Sid to drop off and opened up his phone to idly click through articles for an hour while he fought his drooping eyelids. 

That only worked for a couple of days before he caught himself dozing off and had to get up and pace to get his blood flowing again. The day after that, he supposed there was no reason for him to stay in the room with Sid, once Sid nodded off. He could go get stuff done, organize his mail or something. 

He made the mistake of sitting down at his desk to open envelopes and woke up to the creak of his office door pushing open. Sid crossed his arms, leaned against the doorframe, and cocked his head at him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, just--” he held up a bill from his water company, which, like all his bills, was automatically paid and did not need his attention. But Sid didn’t need to know that.

Sid raised his eyebrows. “Right. And, uh… I don’t suppose pacing the halls yesterday was related.”

“No, I just need to stretch. My knee is stiff.”

Sid ducked his head and made a wordless noise of profound disappointment. “You’re not going to sleep around me again, are you?”

Zhenya cringed. “I think it’s not a good idea.”

“Why?”

Well that much seemed obvious. 

“If you’re just worried about dreams, I told you, it’s fine. I don’t care.”

“I know.” He knew it all too well. Sid didn’t care if Zhenya wanted him. He’d known for a long, long time and never once shown any sign of caring nor changing his tune. “You can not see? Not look at my dream?”

Sid grimaced and shrugged. “It’s not super voluntary, sorry. Like having a TV on in the same room. But look, you’re so unlikely to have a dream like that again. Subconscious is random. I don’t think you have anything to worry about. And you for sure don’t have to worry about offending me or something. We’re good. Everything is fine. So you can stop pretending like the water company needs your attention and sleep. You look exhausted.”

He _was_ exhausted. Between missing out on naps and a fair amount of stress keeping him awake at night, he was totally shot. Still, he hesitated. 

Sid’s reassuring smile fell away in the silence. He ducked his head. “Okay. I’ll leave. You should sleep, G. Seriously.” He looked so devastated that it overrode Zhenya’s own sense of self-preservation.

“No, wait.”

Sid stopped his motion away from the door. A spark of hope returned to his face when Zhenya dropped the envelope and stood up. 

“You right. Everything is fine.”

A hesitant smile pulled back onto Sid’s mouth and banished the last of Zhenya’s lingering misery. 

Zhenya half-worried he wouldn’t be able to sleep, even if he tried, but after days of sleep deprivation, he barely got his eyes closed before he was out cold. And Sid was right. He didn’t dream of anything at all. 

They managed three normal days before Zhenya’s brain betrayed him again, put him in flagrante with Sid in the back seat of a Range Rover neither of them had ever actually owned and contorting in ways his knee would certainly not allow. He woke up with a jolt on his couch and sat up fast, heart racing. 

“Don’t break your knee,” Sid said. He sounded a little breathy, like his heart was going just as fast as Zhenya’s. He looked pretty geared up, too, with his eyes hot and interested, locked on Zhenya, and color in his cheeks. 

“Sorry, I’m-”

It was as far as he got before Sid leaned over and kissed him. 

After that, Zhenya didn’t get any opportunities to ask questions. Granted, he didn’t _try_ , but he was busy. Sid was kissing him. _Sid_. Part of him wondered if he’d never actually woken up, if this was somehow a continuation of his dream, but it certainly felt real. Sid felt warm and solid pressed against him. It was confusing and exhilarating, but nothing Zhenya had any interest in stopping.

“Okay,” Sid breathed against his mouth, not a question but an acknowledgement. Like Zhenya had passed a test. Then he started pulling Zhenya’s clothes off. Zhenya let him get the shirt pulled over his head before he tried to return the favor. Sid barely seemed to notice, so focused was he on getting Zhenya out of his pants. He shucked his shirt at the pull of Zhenya’s hands, but then retreated to kneel on the floor and very carefully pull Zhenya’s pants all the way down without annoying his knee. 

Sid didn’t come back up. Instead, he nudged Zhenya’s knees apart, asked, “Alright?” and before Zhenya could figure out what he was being asked about, shoved his face into Zhenya’s crotch like it was the most amazing thing he’d ever smelled. 

He blew Zhenya with no eloquence, just a single-minded determination to get Zhenya off with his mouth, like he was starving for it. 

Starving. Of course. He usually got to feed on sex from the team, but he’d been out for weeks. He was literally starving, and Zhenya was the only game in town. Well, maybe Zhenya should have offered to help when he first thought of it, since Sid was clearly not bothered by their past foibles, like Zhenya had assumed. 

Sid dug his fingers into Zhenya’s hips. His shoulders heaved with each breath. Zhenya put his hands back to grip the couch and hung on for the ride. 

When he came, Sid made a satisfied noise like it was him experiencing the orgasm and swallowed everything. Even then, he didn’t seem done with Zhenya, suckling until Zhenya had to push him away because he was too sensitive to stand it. 

“Sid,” he said, pulling at Sid’s bare shoulder. Sid followed his lead and clambered carefully up beside him. Zhenya kept moving him until he got them both laying down, with Sid mostly on top of Zhenya, so it was easy to push his jeans down around his hips. Sid didn’t seem to be demanding anything in return, and maybe he didn’t need it to get whatever energy he needed, but Zhenya couldn’t imagine leaving him without. It didn’t take more than a few strokes for Sid to find his own release with his face pressed up against Zhenya’s throat and his mouth parted. 

They breathed together in the too-quiet room, both feeling a little afraid to move. Zhenya turned his head and trailed his lips over Sid’s temple. 

“Feel better?” he asked tentatively, hoping he had been in some way helpful, even if it was all a little confusing, Sid’s hunger and sudden change of heart after so long. 

Sid chuckled. “Yeah. God. It’s been--you know--”

Zhenya filled in the blank where Sid left it hanging. It had been a long time. He’d been alone.

“Sorry, about your uh--the dream. I shouldn’t have snooped, but I was--kind of low,” Sid admitted sheepishly.

Zhenya patted his shoulder lazily, not wanting to dive too deep into it, now that it seemed that Sid might be interested after all. Or at least not--opposed. “No problem. It’s good for me, too, you know. Not bored.” 

Sid nuzzled into his throat and kissed him there. Zhenya shivered at the touch and wondered if they would do this again. 

******************* 

Six weeks post-surgery, Zhenya could walk around his house without any kind of brace, including up the stairs. He could drive. He could get by most days without limping or really needing to rest at all. His knee felt stable, not in danger of collapsing. He was starting to feel pretty hopeful about being back in the Penguins’ lineup for the first round of the playoffs before he got thoroughly shut down by Paul.

“Ah, no way, pal. Playoffs start in a couple weeks, yeah? You’re not even close.”

“How close?” Zhenya asked. 

Paul made a considering face. “You’re past the hard part, for sure. Your knee is about seventy-five percent healed at this point. The problem is that last twenty-five percent is going to take a lot longer. You’ll need to build your strength back up before you can even consider skating.”

“How long?” he asked, getting annoyed by the deflection. 

“If you’re good about training and stretching, I’d give it another three months before you can try to get on the ice.”

Zhenya felt like he’d just been rammed into the boards. Three months. It was too long. He had thought they were looking at another few weeks, maybe up to a month at _most_. Instead, he would be unable to skate for months. He looked up at Paul, hoping to convey how not-okay that was with his face alone. 

“Hey, you asked,” Paul said with a shrug. 

“Three months.”

“Yep. You can skate when you’ve got your stability muscles built back up.”

“Three _months_. That is, like, July. Penguins are go into playoffs in April. No, we need to make faster.”

“There’s not a faster for this, Geno. There’s two ways: the right way or again. You fuck your knee trying to get back too fast, and you will start over.”

All he could hear was the sound of his breath rushing through his ears. Months. He had thought he was close. He had thought he could return in time for the playoffs and help his team. 

He got into the car and sat staring out at the physical therapy building, where he would still be going after somebody won the Stanley Cup. His heart pounded in his head. For the first time, he thought that perhaps he missed the support of his parents’ hovering, and he numbly started his car and drove home. 

Sid’s car was already in his driveway. Things between them were shockingly normal after their long-overdue first time. They had just gone back to the routine, hanging out and healing together. There hadn’t been any repeats, though Zhenya did catch Sid’s eyes on him more often. He thought, if Sid got hungry enough, they would probably wind up doing it again. 

For the most part, Zhenya felt pretty proud of his ability not to make a big deal out of it, even though it absolutely was. Sid had brought him into the fold, finally. He’d joined the rest of his teammates in the ritual of keeping their demon fed. Whatever the issues of the past were, they were gone. Sid might even want to put him into the lineup of roommates when they returned to the team next season. 

Next season. Zhenya wouldn’t play again until next season. 

“Hey,” Sid called from the kitchen. The whole house smelled like popcorn, something Sid had started bringing over because he liked it as a pre-nap snack. Zhenya didn’t answer him. He toed out of his shoes. “How was PT?”

Zhenya ambled toward the kitchen. He paid so much attention to the motion of his feet since the surgery, the shifting of each bone and muscle. He’d never thought so much about the individual processes of his body before in his whole life. It just did what he wanted, until it didn’t anymore. 

“G?” Sid asked worriedly when he saw him. He had a bowl in his hand, had probably just poured the popcorn out of the bag and was about to leave the kitchen when Zhenya entered it. He put it down on the counter instead and walked up to him. “You okay?”

“I can’t skate.”

“Well, yeah. Not yet.”

“Not until three months.”

Sid didn’t look like he got it. “That’s not too long. You’ll be back on the ice before you know it.”

“In summer.”

“Yeah. G, you didn’t honestly think you’d be back for the playoffs.”

Zhenya shrugged. 

“Oh. Um, I’m sorry. I thought. These things take time, you know? You have to be patient.”

“I don’t want--”

Sid’s hand slid over his. “I know. Me neither.” He said it softly, like he was admitting something he never wanted to say out loud. “But shit happens.”

Zhenya huffed a bitter laugh. “Too much shit happen.”

“Yeah,” Sid sighed, and for once he sounded as weary as Zhenya. “For sure. But look on the bright side. You’ve got a timeline. You know you’ll be back by next season.”

Zhenya read between the lines. “You’re not?”

Sid shrugged. “Maybe.”

Zhenya had thought he’d been playing coy when he said he didn’t have a timeline for returning. Sid was so private, Zhenya figured he was just keeping it close to his chest. It never occurred to him that Sid really didn’t know. 

Maybe he didn’t know for a reason. Maybe spending the first two months starving himself had complicated things. After all, back in January, the team had said _a_ month. Sid’s concussion was never supposed to last this long. What if, with a steady source of energy, he could come back? Zhenya couldn’t be back by the playoffs, but what if Sid could? 

Without at least one of them, the Penguins were in trouble. If he could get Sid healthy again, push him back into the lineup, he had to try. All they would have to do was have lots of sex, which didn’t sound like much of a sacrifice.

******************** 

The Penguins clinched a playoff spot while Sid fucked Zhenya on his couch. They’d been innocently watching the game, and they succeeded in _just_ watching hockey for two periods. Then Zhenya scooted closer to Sid during intermission and Sid put a hand on his thigh, and it spiraled out of control from there. The game ended with Zhenya on his back and Sid between his legs. 

The TV was still on. It was jarring to hear Dan Potash talking in the background while Sid braced his hands on the armrest on either side of Zhenya’s head and put his back into fucking him. They were both sweating and moaning, and then Tanger was saying, “It was a really special win for us--”

Sid was the one who scrambled for the remote, but he was only a beat ahead of Zhenya. Zhenya didn’t know why Sid would be bothered by his teammates’ voices during sex. He’d slept with all of them. But Zhenya could do without the soft French accent of one of his closest friends while Sid was balls deep inside him. Maybe Sid was just being courteous.

In the quiet afterglow, lying together on the couch in the dark, Sid said, “They’ll want us at the games when the playoffs start.”

“We’ll see. Maybe you play, huh?” He asked hopefully. Sid hadn’t had any obvious symptoms since they had started screwing, which had only been a couple of weeks now, but it seemed like a huge improvement. Maybe there was still hope for him to get back, even if his conditioning wouldn’t be all there yet. He was _Sidney Crosby_ ; he was inhuman; surely he could make it work. 

Sid snorted like it wasn’t at all possible and Zhenya’s hopes dipped. “Sure. Of course. But on the one hundred percent chance I’m not playing, they’ll want to see us in a box.”

“Too bad,” Zhenya complained.

Sid laughed like he was kidding and kissed his nose. 

“I’m not go, Sid. Press is there. People will talk.”

“Ignore them.”

“No. You can’t play then you stay here and fuck me. Much better time.”

“No argument here, bud. That would be much better than going to watch our team play without us.”

“Okay, good. Then you stay.”

“Sorry,” Sid said, grimacing apologetically, “I can’t.”

Zhenya puffed out a frustrated breath, and they both let it drop, but it was bound to come up again. And it did. Over and over, Sid circled around asking Zhenya to come to the games, and Zhenya kept laughing, kept saying no up until the first home game of the first round. 

“You’re seriously not going to come?” Sid asked in disbelief when he was leaving Zhenya’s house to go get a suit on and get to the game. 

Zhenya was mostly just trying not to express how disappointed he was that Sid hadn’t gotten magically better from feeding from him for a few weeks, but there was no way to do it that wouldn’t hurt Sid’s feelings. He’d thought it made so much sense. A starving athlete couldn’t heal properly, couldn’t train to make their body stronger. Why wouldn’t an incubus suffer the same problems, and why wouldn’t feeding those needs solve them? Maybe Zhenya was doing something wrong.

Sid sighed and rolled his eyes and looked mostly affectionate with a side of exasperated. “Alright, fine. But you’re missing out. The rare opportunity to _watch_ a playoff game. When’s the next time you’ll get to do that?”

God, hopefully never. It sounded awful. “Have fun,” Zhenya said flatly, because he couldn’t imagine Sid would. 

He was unfortunately right. Zhenya watched the game from his couch and wasn’t surprised at how much time the cameras spent on Sid’s face. Sid looked absolutely miserable. 

But Sid didn’t go home after the game, a narrow win. He showed up at Zhenya’s door instead with red-rimmed eyes and didn’t say much of anything before he shoved their mouths together. He didn’t go to any more games after that.

The Penguins didn’t make it out of the first round. It’s not like anyone expected the team to do much without their top two players in the lineup. They watched the game together on TV, curled on Zhenya’s couch, and drank a few too many beers between them for Sid to drive home afterwards. Sid didn’t normally stay over, but it didn’t seem too daunting, considering what they’d already done. 

The morning after, Sid woke with a headache, the first major post-concussive symptom Zhenya was aware of since they started sleeping together. Sid was wrapped in blankets up to his eyebrows like he could muffle the whole world, keep everything at bay. He only spoke enough to confirm his head hurt, which made Zhenya slump back into his pillow disappointedly. Zhenya had wanted to make these things stop, to help Sid recover--but it didn’t seem like he’d helped at all. 

Maybe there was something to the fact that Sid slept with the whole team. Maybe it was like a varied diet. Nobody could succeed eating one thing all the time. Maybe Zhenya was the equivalent of eating nothing but potatoes. The thought made him frown, the idea that he wasn’t enough for Sid. It was stupid to feel inadequate compared to a whole hockey team, but he couldn’t help it. He had started to feel like they were special together, like maybe Sid didn’t need anyone else. 

Still, there was nothing Zhenya could do. He couldn’t back out of the arrangement, and he didn’t want to. It worked and it had helped at least a little. Sid seemed like he had more energy. Zhenya would just have to be the best damn potatoes in the world until Sid could get back to his balanced diet of dudes. That was the goal--it had always been the goal. His budding feelings on the matter didn’t change the reality.

Even once he recovered from the headache, Sid didn’t say much. He paced with bare feet all over the house, wandering from room to room like a cat, restless. But he never left. Sid spent days after the elimination quietly haunting Zhenya’s house, the longest unbroken amount of time he’d stayed over. 

Zhenya eventually got sick of watching him mope and caught him in the hall to turn him around and fuck him hard against the wall, a last ditch effort. He wanted to get Sid talking again, making any noise, and he succeeded. Sid’s shoulders rippled while he braced his hands against the wall and he let out a steady stream of moans. Zhenya smacked his ass and dug his fingers into Sid’s hips and wrapped a hand around the back of his neck to keep him bent over while he finished. He was rough, rougher than he’d really dared to go with Sid before, and it felt so fucking good. 

Until, standing in the stillness after they’d both gotten off, Sid sniffed like he was holding back sobs. Zhenya pulled out and turned him around. He looked overwhelmed by misery, like he simply couldn’t keep it bottled up. “Sid--” Zhenya started, ready to apologize profusely for whatever he’d done. 

Sid stepped into his arms and pushed his face into Zhenya’s neck.

“Was that--”

“It was perfect,” Sid said, intercepting his mounting worry. Zhenya had wondered, a bit, if his lack of success in curing Sid might make Sid reconsider it all, and maybe they would just stop sleeping together, and go back to being kind of awkward friends. But perhaps all hope wasn’t lost.

Zhenya relaxed and rested his chin on Sid’s head. “Sad?”

“A little, yeah. I guess it just kind of hit me all at once, you know? I haven’t played in so long, the season is over--”

“Need to go out of Pittsburgh,” Zhenya said, and before he could let himself chicken out, he continued. “Come to Miami with me.”

“What’s in Miami?” Sid asked.

“Me.” Zhenya smiled, feeling hopeful. “What else you need?”

“Low humidity?” Sid deadpanned, probably only half kidding. 

“It’s fine,” Zhenya said, because Sid would get used to it after a couple of days. At least where Zhenya lived, the breeze blew over the water and kept the worst of the heat at bay. 

“Somewhere with no alligators.”

“I have fence. They stay out.”

“Oh, well, if you have a fence,” Sid said. He sounded lighter, happier than he had a minute ago, which Zhenya wanted to believe was due to the invitation. 

“So you come?”

“Yeah. I’ll come.” Sid said. Zhenya smiled unbidden in response. 

Zhenya didn't want to give Sid any time to think about it too hard and back out, so he got the tickets right away. Within twenty-four hours, they were on a plane.

****************** 

Zhenya got set up with a sports rehab center in Miami, someone who would report back to Paul for the duration of his trip, and life carried on. He did physical therapy every other day, his only real obligation. The rest of the time he spent crowding into Sid’s personal space and lazily soaking in the long, humid days. 

Of course, Sid could never remain as idle as Zhenya would like to. It took Sid two days to find the nearest gym and sign up. Shortly after, he fell into a conversation with a woman outside the grocery store about a local trail running group that met once a week and was instantly sold. He joined their Facebook group right then and there and agreed to meet up the following Thursday. 

“You going to run?” Zhenya said skeptically because a lot of high impact cardio didn’t sound great for Sid’s head. But Zhenya wasn’t a doctor.

“At my own pace,” Sid said, a little bristly as he loaded groceries into the car. “I can just walk.”

Zhenya worried he wouldn’t, though, that he would get into the moment and push himself and suffer for it. Sid was already having setbacks; Zhenya didn’t want it to get worse. He paced the house for the entirety of Thursday afternoon while Sid was gone and tried not to be obvious when he rushed to meet Sid at the door the second he came home. 

His worries abated when he found Sid smiling, soaked in sweat and pink as a newborn. It seemed the worst he’d gotten was a sunburn.

“Have fun?” Zhenya asked while his blood pressure normalized. 

“Oh my god, you have no idea. Those guys are nuts. I could never do that much long cardio during the season. I tapped out at like eight miles, and most of them were planning to go another loop.”

Zhenya watched the lines of his throat while he gulped down a glass of water. His eyes roamed over Sid’s shoulders where his wet shirt was clinging to every muscle. Sid set the glass down and pulled the shirt away from where it was sticking to his stomach. 

“Okay, shower time,” Sid said.

Zhenya snagged him as he passed and kissed him, feeling confident enough to do so. Sid’s ecstatic smile settled into something gentle and fond. 

“Sorry. I’m all sweaty.”

Like Zhenya hadn’t been amply aware of that fact. Zhenya kissed him again, this time to make a point. 

When he pulled back, Sid licked his lips. “You, uh--want to join me?”

It was _precisely_ what Zhenya wanted. 

For as long as he’d run, Sid seemed to have plenty of energy to spare taking Zhenya apart. He kissed him with a focused intensity under the spray of the showerhead, hand curled possessively over his hip, and nothing in the world could make Zhenya happier.

Sid jerked Zhenya off while mouthing kisses against his throat then turned him around and pumped himself until he came all over Zhenya’s ass. It all washed away under the spray, but for a moment they were filthy, and Zhenya absolutely loved it. 

Usually, sex seemed to supercharge Sid, get him revved up and energetic, but it seemed the long run had taken its toll. Sid exited the master bath looking sleepy and lethargic. He gave the bed a longing glance but apparently decided it was too late for a nap. 

Zhenya caught him at the dresser while Sid was pulling on a pair of boxers and kissed his pink, warm shoulder. “Need lotion.”

Sid grimaced. “Yeah. It’s starting to sting.”

“I get. Don’t put shirt, okay?”

He dug aloe out of the medicine cabinet and returned to find Sid lying facedown on the bed, which made Zhenya laugh. “Don’t sleep. We have to make dinner.”

“I’m not sleeping,” Sid mumbled. His eyes were closed. “I’m waiting for you.”

Zhenya huffed at him and climbed onto the bed to straddle his hips. That got Sid to at least open his eyes and look back interestedly. “Stop,” Zhenya scolded without much conviction, because he, too, could probably get interested again pretty quickly. If Sid wanted to go again, Zhenya would figure out how to get it done. Maybe fucking Sid wasn’t healing him, but it was keeping him happy, and keeping Sid happy made Zhenya happy. 

Sid settled in with a smirk pulling at his mouth and let Zhenya pour aloe on the places touched a little too hard by the sun. 

“How you do this?” Zhenya asked as he rubbed in soft circles. 

“Well, I mean, I had my shirt off while we were running.”

An excellent visual, but not what Zhenya meant. He’d assumed demons wouldn’t be affected by things like fire or radiation from the sun. After all, hell had to be ten times worse. Right?

“Give me a little bit of a break,” Sid continued. “I’m used to training in Halifax. I wasn’t super prepared for the heat. I’ll take sunscreen next time.”

That blew Zhenya’s mind. “You need sunscreen?” 

“Uh, yeah. I burn pretty easy.”

“But--” Zhenya started to straight up ask why a demon could burn before second-guessing himself. Sid didn’t like to talk much about being a demon and mostly avoided the subject. Zhenya didn’t want to make him close off. 

But Sid opened his eyes again to look back suspiciously at him. “You thought I couldn’t sunburn because of what I am, huh?”

“Um--”

Sid just chuckled instead of taking offense. “Sorry to disappoint you. I sunburn. I get sick and hurt and all that. There’s nothing really special about me, other than the obvious. It’s more of a disability than an advantage.”

“You don’t get anything?” That seemed fucking tragic. Zhenya's hands ran out of power to continue rubbing Sid’s skin while he considered the possibility that being a demon had, well, seemingly no benefits.

Sid shrugged. “I guess I’m maybe a little stronger than most people? I can kind of read minds, but only when it comes to sex, so it’s not that useful. It’s also obnoxiously hard to tune out. And, I mean--I could, but I don’t--um--you know...” he trailed off

Zhenya certainly did _not_ know. It was as candid as Sid had ever been about himself, and Zhenya wanted to keep him going, to trust Zhenya to know these things about him. He poured more aloe out onto Sid's back and started working it into spots that weren’t nearly as pink lower down on his back, mostly an excuse to keep him there, keep him talking. “You can what?”

“Well, uh--it sounds terrible.”

“What?”

“I could make somebody want me,” Sid mumbled. “Sexually. I could make them think they always wanted me.” His sunburnt face was getting redder, and he turned it into the pillow. 

“No, come,” Zhenya whined because he didn’t want Sid to shut down. He wanted to know everything. The subject had been whispered and talked around in the locker room for years, and he had an opportunity now to set the record straight, fill in the gaps where he clearly knew very little about what made the incubus side of Sid tick. “Turn. I can get front.”

Sid obeyed him, but he immediately covered his face with an arm when he settled onto his back. Zhenya got situated on his hips and poured aloe onto his chest. "I promise I didn't. I haven't been making you--" Sid mumbled from under his arm.

“Hey. I know you don’t,” Zhenya said, nudging at Sid’s arm. “I’m not worry.”

Sid peeked out. “You’re not? I didn’t want to tell you about this before, in case you thought--”

“I don’t. Was my dream I have that day, remember?”

“In fairness, I could probably make you dream that,” Sid said with a sheepish shrug. 

“Maybe. But I trust you.”

Obviously, trust was a big deal to Sid, who stopped looking so pinched and guilty about the absolutely nothing he’d done wrong. He ran a hand up Zhenya’s arm and pulled him in by the back of the neck to kiss him without any urgency at all, just because it seemed like he wanted to. 

****************** 

Seryozha called in June to let Zhenya know he and his family were planning to settle in Miami for the month. His voice still brought an empty ache to Zhenya, even though it had been a year since he was traded. 

“Are you still in Ottawa? You must really love it there.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Seryozha said, negating all the times he’d insisted the city wasn’t terrible, just different. He would get used to it. “We came to Moscow after the season. But our family is driving us crazy now, and we need a vacation. A long one. Where are you?”

“Way ahead of you. I’m already in Miami.”

“Excellent, I don’t need to browbeat you. I’ll see you in three days.”

Zhenya nearly let him go before he realized he should warn him. “Wait! Just one thing. Sid’s here.”

“Sid who?” 

Zhenya rolled his eyes. “He was going to hermit up in his house if I left him, so I brought him with me.”

“You’re serious. You convinced _our_ Sid to join you in Florida. In summer.”

Seryozha’s use of ‘our’ momentarily boiled Zhenya’s blood. It was precisely the type of possessive instinct he was trying his best to tame. 

“He’s doing surprisingly well,” he said, forcing his tone to be light. “He hasn’t melted once.”

Seryozha chuckled. “Good to know. Tell him he’s always welcome at our place, same as you.”

“Yeah, will do. You guys need a ride from the airport?”

“We were going to use a shuttle, but if you’re offering.”

“Of course. Send me the info.”

For the first week, Sid acted shy about going over to Seryozha’s house, which Zhenya didn’t entirely understand. Maybe they’d never been that close back in Pittsburgh, but they seemed to get along just fine. 

“Maybe I’ll be a killjoy,” Sid explained, when Zhenya asked again if he would come to Seryozha’s for dinner and stubbornly kept asking when Sid refused. “I still get headaches sometimes and like, I can’t hang out for that long. I don’t know.” 

“It’s fine, they like you however long you stay,” Zhenya said, pulling him up from his seat on the couch. “Natalie want to see you; don’t make her sad.” 

Sid waited a long beat before speaking again, as if he was considering his options thoroughly. Zhenya just wanted him to agree. Family time would be good for him, whether he thought so or not. 

“Okay,” Sid said tentatively, and smiled a small smile. “If you say so.”

Sid’s fears were laid to rest when he arrived at the Gonchar house and Natalie came barreling down the hall to crash into him with a hug. “Sid!”

The warm welcome settled Sid more than Zhenya’s assurances could have. “Hey, Natalie. It’s been a while, eh?”

“Forever! I miss Pittsburgh so much.”

“I’m sure Pittsburgh misses you, too,” Sid said with a twinkle in his eye. “But tell me about Ottawa. How’s school up there? Are they teaching you French?”

“Oui!” 

Oh god, that was starting. Sid looked entranced as she started going off in French and Zhenya made his escape to the other side of the house before he got bullied into trying any of the fourteen or so French words he knew.

Seryozha was in the kitchen, stirring something over the stove while Ksenia balanced Victoria on her hip. He glared when he turned and saw Zhenya. “I thought you were bringing Sid this time. I’m starting to not believe you about him being here.”

“He’s here,” Zhenya said, hands up innocently. “He’s speaking French with Natalie in the front hall. I thought Ottawa was English-speaking.”

“It’s the capital,” Seryozha said with a shrug. “They’re all bilingual there. Besides, she likes learning languages.”

To each their own, but Zhenya would never understand it. English had been hard enough to get a grasp on. He couldn’t imagine trying to stir French into the mix in any meaningful way. He’d end up speaking gibberish.

Victoria squirmed away from Ksenia and trotted clumsily away down the hall, toward the distant laughter of Sid and Natalie. 

Sid finally made his appearance with a child’s hand in each of his, stooped to one side to reach Victoria’s much shorter height. She babbled up at him in her toddler language and smiled. He smiled back like he was in on the joke, which made Victoria giggle delightedly. 

“Looks like we have a babysitter,” Ksenia said wryly, stepping forward to hug Sid. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too. Thank you for inviting me.”

“Come over all the time, eat our food, make yourself at home,” Seryozha insisted. “He does.” He jerked a nod at Zhenya.

They ate dinner outside on the back porch with the sun sinking lower and throwing long shadows everywhere and the insects buzzing in the trees. Even though Sid had been wary, he seemed right at home at the table beside Zhenya, chatting with Ksenia about her charity work and giving equal time to each of the kids, even though nobody knew what Victoria was talking about. She gave him big, cheesy grins and he gave them right back, and it was enough to keep her happy. Watching Sid smile at her was definitely enough to keep Zhenya happy.

When Ksenia got up to gather dishes, Sid jumped up to help, ever the good son. 

“So,” Seryozha said after the kids raced off to play in the yard. “Want to tell me what this is all about?” He gestured between Sid’s empty chair and Zhenya.

“What?”

“You and Sid.”

“I told you. His head is still giving him trouble and he--”

“Zhenya. You two over here making eyes at each other isn’t about his head.”

“We’re not--it’s nothing like _that_ ,” Zhenya sputtered. As repressed as Seryozha could be, he certainly hadn’t expected him to infer that they were dating. “I’m just helping him out, you know? Like the team.”

Seryozha just chuckled. “Uh huh. Okay.”

“It is! Don’t start, please.”

“I’m not going to say anything. I’m just happy for you both.”

“There’s nothing to be happy about. We’re not dating.”

“Of course not,” Seryozha said without an ounce of belief. He looked nothing but bemused by the idea that Zhenya might be dating his longtime teammate, and that surprised Zhenya. Seryozha had a practical sort of mind and had often served to ground Zhenya in reality. If Zhenya had ever--fleetingly--thought of the possibility of dating Sid, he had thought Seryozha would protest, would show concern for his career, or wonder how they could pull it off, what with Sid feeding from twenty-some other guys all season. Well, maybe he wouldn’t have to feed from the rest of the guys, if he had Zhenya.

Zhenya hunched over the table and didn’t look directly at Seryozha when he asked quietly, “Um--you don’t think it would be a bad thing? If we were…” he trailed off and shrugged. 

“Bad for what?” Seryozha asked with raised eyebrows like he really couldn’t think of a single practical thing that could go wrong between them and ruin team chemistry. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Zhenya thought hard about that. They both had long contracts with no movement clauses, so trades weren’t realistic. He supposed the team could try to punish them, force them to break up, but that would make for some pretty bad PR and he wasn’t sure how they would keep it from getting out. He finally settled on a realistic scenario of sitting in Dan’s office and talking with the whole coaching staff about their relationship and how it might affect the team. He felt his face pull into a resistant frown at the mere idea. Mortifying. 

Seryozha chuckled at him. “Must be pretty awful, with that face. Good thing you’re not dating, and you don’t have to deal with it, huh?” It was a gentle sort of mocking that soothed whatever defensiveness Zhenya might otherwise have felt.

“Yeah, it’s a very good thing,” Zhenya huffed before turning the conversation to fishing or other topics of no particular note.

Thankfully, Seryozha didn’t say anything to Sid as they were leaving, though he did clap Sid on the shoulder and insist again that he join Zhenya at their house whenever he could. 

“If you need anything, we are here,” he said. “Even if you’re not feeling 100%, I can always tell the girls to leave you alone for a while. You’re always welcome.”

Sid looked so pleased at that and gave a last round of high-fives to the girls with promises to come back. Zhenya watched the whole exchange with fondness until Seryozha smirked and he was forced to glare back in response. 

On the ride home, Sid slumped in the passenger seat and looked totally happy. “We should have them over next, maybe grill something.”

Zhenya’s stomach did a little flip. Over their time in Miami, he’d allowed himself to start to consider the possibility of their arrangement growing into more, planted a seed that Sid was watering with his friendly smile and the needy way he always reached for Zhenya during sex, like he _liked_ feeding from him a lot and didn’t want to stop at all. And now he was talking about inviting the Gonchars over like he and Zhenya were--a couple, maybe. It filled Zhenya up with too much emotion, a shapeless sort of hope that was messy and all-encompassing. 

Zhenya wrestled his feelings back under control before he did something crazy like profess his undying love before they even made it back to the house. They had a loose arrangement and it was simple and it was working--or working well enough, at least. Keeping them happy. There was no need to go complicating things just yet, when Zhenya was still a little unsure whether Sid would want to go back to his usual routine, once hockey returned. 

Sid grinned over at him when Zhenya blew out a breath. “What?”

“Nothing, just thinking,” Zhenya replied, because he wasn’t ready to share his thoughts. 

Sid’s grin didn’t fade; it just became sly. “Yeah? Anything fun?” 

Zhenya knew that look well.

Sid got handsy before Zhenya could even get the door open and they didn’t make it ten steps into the house before they were making out. He nipped at Zhenya’s lower lip with his teeth, playful.

“Remember what you tell me?” Zhenya asked, suddenly remembering their last conversation, where Sid had said he could--

Sid shook his head. “Nope. What was it?”

“About super power.”

Sid threw his head back and laughed a little. “Yeah, okay. I remember.”

Zhenya took full advantage of his exposed throat to bite at it lightly. “Maybe you can show me?”

He could feel Sid swallow against his lips and knew if he raised his gaze he wouldn’t be met with Sid’s smile.

“Just for fun,” Zhenya said quickly, nervous. “If you want.” He wanted Sid to know that Zhenya _trusted_ him, that he knew that Sid wasn’t dangerous, even the demon parts of him. He wanted Sid to want him in his bed, not just now, but into the season and beyond. 

“I don’t know,” Sid said, hesitant. “You’d lose free will. You couldn’t say no.”

“I will never say no,” Zhenya insisted, because Sid had never come close to his limits in bed in any way. And Zhenya was pretty sure he wouldn’t, even now. “I will do whatever you want.”

“You won’t have a choice,” Sid said. He wasn’t sounding as hesitant about it now, perhaps because he sensed Zhenya’s sincerity. When Zhenya raised up to look, Sid’s eyes were sharp, supremely interested. No matter what Sid said, clearly some part of him wanted to try it pretty badly. “Whatever I want, you’ll do. Until I’m finished with you.”

“Yes.” Zhenya was breathing faster himself. “Sid, please. I want to see. I want to try.”

“If you’re sure,” Sid said, eyes smoldering.

Zhenya nodded. “Yes. Do it.”

Sid reached up and tangled a hand in his hair to pull Zhenya down and kiss him. Zhenya went with it. He was always happy to kiss Sid, and maybe he thought Sid needed some time to get the spell ready, or whatever. 

When they’d been kissing for a while, though, Zhenya started to get impatient. He pulled back, ready to complain that Sid wasn’t doing what he asked and insist that they go to the bedroom. 

And then he just--didn’t. He kept kissing Sid languidly, in no hurry to move while Sid’s hands crept down his back and cupped his ass. They made out for a long time and his patience held out. He never felt the need to move away. 

“Geno,” Sid said. His voice was the focal point of Zhenya’s attention. Everything narrowed in on the sound. It was all Zhenya could hear, echoing in his head. “Go upstairs, take off your clothes, and get in bed.”

Zhenya couldn’t imagine doing anything else. He could hear Sid start turning out lights as he followed Zhenya’s trail to the bedroom, but it never occurred to him to stop or wait. He just went straight to the bedroom, stripped, and got under the covers. 

Sid came into the room after him but didn’t immediately come to the bed. That was okay. Zhenya could be patient. He didn’t even touch himself to entice Sid, which would normally be his instinct. Instead, he just waited, watching as Sid stripped out of his shirt and took his watch off before finally turning toward the bed.

Sid pulled back the covers to expose him and scanned his eyes over Zhenya’s body, and Zhenya said nothing. He would normally want to reassure Sid or urge him on, but without guidance, he was content to stay and wait. Sid swallowed. He looked both worried and determined. 

“Can I fuck you?” Sid asked.

“Yes,” Zhenya said without considering because it _was_ what he wanted. He wanted Sid inside him, fucking him however he pleased. 

“Turn over.”

Sid went away for a moment while Zhenya obeyed, but he returned quickly, naked this time, and crawled into bed with Zhenya. Sid could have lubed up and taken him right away, and Zhenya would have wanted it. His body ached to be filled, but he didn’t complain or say a word when Sid took his time rubbing lube first onto and then into his body. Sid seemed to be taking a lot longer than usual, in fact. Zhenya wanted him to. Zhenya wanted everything.

Sid finally got inside him after what seemed like hours of preparation. Zhenya’s nerves were lit up, awash in arousal. His moans turned to near sobs as firecrackers of sensation went off throughout his body, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes while Sid nailed him perfectly. 

Zhenya came without a hand on him, and Sid followed him over, giving him a few more satisfying thrusts to work him through before he stilled inside Zhenya. Sid kissed along his shoulders and he was content to stay there for as long as Sid wanted. And he was pretty sure he would feel that way even if he weren’t being controlled. 

Until suddenly, he felt a building cramp in his shoulder and wanted to move his arm enough to prevent it from getting worse. It was jarring to suddenly have a will again. He hadn’t noticed much difference when Sid took over, but the shift back felt like missing a step when climbing stairs, a disorienting sort of jolt before he settled back into his own mind. 

“Hey. You okay?” Sid asked, voice sleepy and a little concerned.

Zhenya grinned sheepishly and turned his head. “Test. Tell me to move.”

“Move,” Sid said, smiling back at him, happy with afterglow.

“No way. I’m dead.”

Sid chuckled and eased his cock out. He tossed the condom toward the wastebasket and nestled next to Zhenya. “How was it?” he asked, sounding a little cautious. 

“So good. We do again soon. It’s like--drugs. Feeling all over, like...” He ran out of words in any language to describe the feeling of being lit on fire sexually and then eagerly consumed by the flames, and just went with, “really fucking good.”

A relieved smile slowly revealed itself on Sid’s face, more in his eyes than anywhere. “Good. I’m glad.”

Zhenya wondered momentarily if any of the guys had experienced this. As shy as he was about doing it, surely Sid wasn’t bamboozling their teammates regularly. Maybe even never. A possessive sort of hope flared inside Zhenya at the thought. Maybe the whole team had slept with Sid, but they didn’t get this, this most vulnerable part of him. Even if Sid did want to go back to sharing when they got back, this one part of him belonged to Zhenya and nobody could take that away. 

***************** 

True to Paul’s prediction, Zhenya was cleared to skate in July. He met with a doctor in the sports medicine complex in Miami and, after a new MRI, he practically danced out of the office with the knowledge of his newfound freedom. He sped home and burst through the door and tackled Sid as soon as he saw him. 

“Good news?” Sid asked while Zhenya hugged him. 

“So good. I can skate.”

Sid breathed out against his shoulder like he was relieved. “That’s great, G. I’m so happy for you.”

As they lay in bed that night, Sid broke Zhenya out of a light doze by saying, “I think I want to go back to Pittsburgh. I want to try to skate with you there.”

It was the first Sid had mentioned of skating himself, the first he’d expressed any interest in trying to skate since January. It woke Zhenya right up. He pushed himself up on an elbow to look at Sid with a pounding heart.

“Just to try. I want to see if, maybe--”

He didn’t need to say more. Maybe, if he could skate, if he could train, they could come back together in the fall. Perhaps they could restore the Penguins jointly. Zhenya wanted nothing more than both of them together on the ice on opening night.

But Zhenya wondered still if once they returned to the normalcy of the season, Sid wouldn’t need him anymore, once he had the entire team at his disposal. Maybe he would prefer someone else. Zhenya wanted to think that these last few months meant something more than just convenient friends-with-benefits feeding, but he couldn’t be sure when he didn’t entirely understand Sid’s intentions.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Sid said quickly, seeing his suddenly stricken expression and apparently mistaking it for doubt at his physical abilities. “I’m still having symptoms, but they’re _mild_.”

Sid’s definition of mild included occasional migraines that kept him from leaving bed and difficulty reading anything longer than a paragraph, but at least he wasn’t dizzy anymore. Zhenya would give him that. He could probably skate, slowly maybe. 

“G?” Sid asked, obviously losing momentum the longer Zhenya said nothing. “What do you think?”

“Maybe…” Zhenya trailed off. He wanted so badly to start skating, and knew to do so he would need the Penguins training staff to watch his every move, lest they leave him disappointed voicemails for the rest of the summer. He knew he had to go back to Pittsburgh eventually and leave this summer idyll behind.

“I want to stay a couple days more,” Zhenya said, struck by sudden inspiration to buy himself some time. “For Gonch.”

Zhenya could see Sid spooling up his protest and then letting it wind down. Sid knew how much he missed having Seryozha around, which was why it was such a perfect excuse. 

“Okay, sure,” Sid said with a shrug. “Not like there’s a rush, right? We have all summer.”

“Right.”

Zhenya suddenly wasn’t in any rush at all. He went from pushing his therapists daily about skating to avoiding the subject entirely. 

Sid put up with it, happy to laze around together and go on runs on the beach and fuck Zhenya into the arm of the couch, until, six days later, Seryozha decided to pack up and go home. 

“Maybe you could stay another week,” Zhenya said, sitting at Seryozha’s breakfast bar after an early workout. He knew he sounded petulant and Seryozha’s exasperated look confirmed it. “There’s nothing going on in Moscow this time of year. Just stay.”

“You said that last week,” Seryozha said with a raised eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing! I’ll just, you know. I’ll miss you guys.”

“Come with us, then,” Seryozha said, like it was that simple, like Zhenya could imagine leaving Sid alone for the rest of the summer. There was no way, not this year.

“I can’t.”

Seryozha heaved a burdened sigh. “Invite Sid.”

“To Moscow?” 

“Sure. If you want to go, I’m sure he’d go with you.”

Zhenya wasn’t nearly as confident about that and a little afraid to ask. “It’s not about Sid.”

Seryozha made a noise of profound disbelief, and Zhenya figured he wasn’t winning the battle. 

He saw the family off on a Thursday and by Friday afternoon, Sid was visibly antsy. He brought the subject of returning to Pittsburgh up again while Zhenya was chopping vegetables for dinner. 

“So…I was thinking we could look at plane tickets tonight.”

Zhenya’s hand slowed. He didn’t want to give this up yet. They were in the kitchen being all domestic, like a real couple might, and he wanted it to go on forever. A return to Pittsburgh meant a return to skating, which meant Sid might find out he could come back to the team. Their fantasy relationship would come to an end as soon as the season started.

“Geno.” Sid sounded a little put out by his silence. Clearly, he knew something was up. 

“Okay. We maybe talk,” Zhenya said, feeling like perhaps there was no other option now. He had to fess up.

“Maybe?”

“After dinner.”

Sid sighed. He looked impatient as he unwrapped the fresh, locally-caught mahi-mahi he’d picked up that morning down on the pier. Zhenya didn’t think it would go over well if he told Sid they couldn’t buy _that_ back in Pittsburgh, try to use it as an excuse to stay. 

They got through a pleasant dinner and did the dishes afterward while chatting aimlessly, and Zhenya started to think he could escape the subject for one more night, feeling cowardly about it again. But he turned around from putting the last glass into the dishwasher and found Sid looking expectantly at him. 

“Okay. Hit me. What’s the deal? Why don’t you want to go home?”

Zhenya profoundly did not want to have this conversation, but it was happening. He considered briefly just giving in, going to get his laptop to figure out plane tickets, but the idea made him feel almost queasy, thinking about going back to the old normal.

“Geno, seriously. You can’t just not say anything. What is going on?”

Zhenya blew out a breath and just spit it out. “I don’t want to go.”

“Yeah, that much I figured out, but _why_?”

Zhenya leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. There had to be a way to say it in English that didn’t sound selfish and awful. Then again, he wasn’t sure he could say it in Russian without sounding selfish and awful, so maybe not. 

Apparently he took too long to figure it out because Sid exhaled, audibly frustrated with him. “Do you seriously think I can’t skate?”

Zhenya’s racing mind skidded to a halt. “What?”

“You were all excited to be cleared to skate before I said I wanted to give it a try. Then you suddenly wanted to stay in Miami. So, what? You think it’s too soon, I’ll lose my balance--”

“No.”

“I’ll be wearing pads. Who cares if I fall?”

“No, no, that’s not what I think.”

“Then what?” Sid said waspishly. “What is it?”

“I--” Zhenya’s words lodged in his throat as he watched Sid scratch the back of his neck, the same agitated move he used when a reporter was pissing him off but he couldn’t do anything about it.

Sid’s eyes came up expectantly and pinned Zhenya in place. 

“I think you skate fine. Perfect. Like always. But it’s other stuff. Not just skate, but like guys start coming back and--I don’t know how it works.”

“One step at a time, just like your knee. It’s a concussion, not a death sentence. Why are you being so weird about this all of a sudden?” 

Sid crossed his arms when he was done talking, like he was bracing for Zhenya to hit him with something very hurtful. Zhenya knew exactly what it was. He thought Zhenya would tell him he didn’t think it was a good idea to try to come back to hockey at all. There had been others who’d said it, suggested that a half-year concussion wasn’t something to mess with, that it wasn’t worth the risk to try to return. He should retire. Those voices, some of them very close to Sid, had cut him deeply. He didn’t like to talk about it, but Zhenya had seen how their opinions wore on him. In part, Zhenya knew it was because Sid saw the wisdom in their advice, but he couldn’t stand to take it.

It was a perfect out, a way to delay Sid’s return to the team without having to admit anything. Zhenya could just blame the concussion. It wasn’t like Sid didn’t have plenty of symptoms still, and if Zhenya piled on with the caring people who had advised Sid never to try to play again--but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bear to become another person making Sid feel like he would never get back to their hockey team. There were limits to his selfishness.

“I know you will play. You will play this year. I’m just worry about what happen,” Zhenya admitted. “You come back to team, come back on road, and maybe things is different. Different for me.”

Sid’s tight expression loosened, now that Zhenya hadn’t told him he would never play again. He uncrossed his arms and cocked his head. “Different?”

Zhenya sucked in a big yoga breath and pushed it all out at once. “I don’t want you to fuck the guys anymore. Just only me.”

The only sound in the room was the humming from the refrigerator while Sid stared at him in wide-eyed surprise. “You don’t want me to _what_?”

Zhenya cringed. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting Sid to say, really. “Sorry. I know you do always. Maybe you need everyone different energy. I don’t know.”

“Hold on. Do you think I’m screwing our entire team?”

“Uh--” 

Sid coughed a dry, surprised laugh. “Wow. Okay. Why, exactly, do you think that?”

“You’re, like, um--incubus, right? And you go to different guys in hotel rooms, always. The guys talk. Say like--sex things after.”

“Oh shit.” Understanding flicked onto Sid’s face like he’d flipped a switch. ”You’ve thought that the whole time.” He blew out a breath. He shook his head like he needed to clear it. “Okay. Well.”

Zhenya needed to sit. His head was spinning. He he took off for the nearest couch and Sid followed him. 

“Geno. I don’t sleep with all the guys,” Sid said, hand on Zhenya’s shoulder.

“Then why you room with them?”

“Dreams, G. I use their dreams, guide them to dreaming about sex and then take the energy. It’s not the same as actually--you know. But it’s enough as long as I do it pretty often.”

“You, um--you sleep with teammates sometimes, even? For better energy?” Zhenya asked, thinking of the playoffs when things got really tough. Surely, Sid sometimes partook. 

“No way.”

Zhenya’s mind raced trying to think of all the times people talked about rooming with Sid in the locker room, all the inuendo passed around over the years. “You never fuck _anyone_?” It didn’t seem possible. 

“Well--not teammates, no. There are other people in the world. I’m not, like, celibate or something. But I wouldn’t risk team chemistry to sleep around. That’s a terrible idea.”

Oh. That didn’t sound promising for their long and monogamous future either. “Why you kiss me, then?” Zhenya asked, feeling a little prickly.

“Hey, no. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“How you mean? Sleep with teammate is terrible idea and I’m teammate, so--”

“You’re different,” Sid reassured him. “It’s different between us.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Sid said with the smile breaking through his tight expression. “I like you. I more than like you. C’mon, you really can’t tell?”

Zhenya’s breath left his lungs and refused to return right away. “Oh.”

Sid shook his head while still looking pretty amused and reached out to pull on Zhenya’s sleeve. Zhenya followed and tucked himself up against Sid, and they stayed like that for a long time without talking, just breathing together.

After a while, Sid burst out with, “You seriously thought I fucked _Army_? Or Talbo?”

Zhenya ducked his face into Sid’s neck to hide his raging blush. “I really--I don’t know. I think you’re need to eat. I’m not, like, judge. It’s just how it is for you, I think.”

“Why didn’t you ask _me_ about it?”

“At first, when you don’t want to fuck me, I don’t know what to think. You seem always happy to see me, but then you don’t want to fuck me. I’m like, what, I’m ugly?”

“Oh, I haven’t thought about that in a long time,” Sid said, and a smile bloomed on his face. “You totally tried to seduce me.”

Zhenya groaned. 

Sid snorted a laugh. “You know I almost took you up on it?”

“Seriously?”

“Sure. I just thought you were offering and you were so--” He waved a hand down Zhenya’s body, apparently a demonstration of his temptation. “But then I thought, no way. Flower put you up to it to fuck with me. He’d done it before, told people I would need to go all the way. Of course, I didn’t think you’d _keep_ thinking that afterward, Jesus.”

Zhenya cringed. Sid nudged on him until he could see his face and then kissed him. The sting of embarrassment eased.

“Next time you’re not sure about something, come talk to me about it, eh? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Zhenya didn’t see how another miscommunication of this magnitude could ever occur again, because it truly was ridiculous, but he liked the idea of there being next times in their relationship, endless amounts of next times. He nodded immediately.

“Can we talk about getting plane tickets now?” Sid asked. “Head home? I really do want to get on the ice soon.”

There was no more reason to be apprehensive about returning. “Sure, I get computer.”

He started to move, but Sid held onto him and stopped him. “In a minute.”

Zhenya settled in Sid’s arms. He understood the dual desires to both move forward and stay in the moment. It felt like they were at a turning point, but he was excited to find out where they were going. 

****************** 

Zhenya pulled the laces tight on his skate. The boot felt rigid, stiff from disuse. He would need to adjust the laces on the bench once he warmed up, when everything loosened from the heat. 

Across the locker room, Sid was already in his pads, holding a red jersey in his hands. He felt Zhenya staring and grinned up. “No-contact jerseys? It’s just the two of us.”

Zhenya chuckled and shrugged. “For press, maybe,” he said, though he really hoped the press hadn’t been invited. He had no idea if he could actually skate yet. For all he knew, the first attempt to stop would put too much torque on his knee and set him back a month. 

Sid looked back at the jersey and shrugged. “Maybe.” He pulled it on over his pads and reached back for his helmet and gloves. With those final pieces in place, Sid looked game ready, like he’d never been hurt. It was crazy to think how many months it had been since he’d worn his gear, even longer since they shared the ice.

Sid did a double-take at Zhenya when he realized he was still holding his elbow pad, not making any moves to get any further dressed. “Come on, slow poke. We don’t have the ice all day.”

They probably could have the practice ice all day. Technically, it was scheduled out to drop-ins and practices, but Zhenya doubted anyone in the Pittsburgh hockey community would mind giving it up for them. He pulled the elbow pad on, apparently not fast enough because Sid got impatient. 

“Okay, I’ll meet you out there,” Sid said, already on his way out. He was excited. He’d been symptom-free for a few days, which probably made the prospect of skating even more enticing. 

Zhenya’s own excitement was tempered with jitters, which slowed his hands. Not for the first time, he wished he’d bought out a rink in Miami to touch the ice the first time totally alone. He didn’t want to deal with everybody’s concern over it if he wiped out. 

He dragged himself into the last of his gear and stood up with a sharp inhale, heart pounding. His knee felt fine. He took a few waddling skate-steps and it still felt fine. He let his breath out and followed Sid’s path out the door.

When he reached the ice, he didn’t give himself a chance to hesitate. He darted right through the open bench door and pushed into a slow, easy lap. His knee felt tight, but not concerning. All of his joints were bound to be a little resistant to getting back into the swing of things after so long away. Back at the bench, he stopped on his right leg with his heart in his throat, but his knee didn’t even twinge. His nerves settled. He could do this. 

The trainers were understandably cautious with them on their first outing. It was a little like being back in rehab, doing things that he would have found laughable before the injury, but it was creating a foundation. And even when he wanted to do something other than basic edgework, it was hard to get frustrated with Sid’s unwavering enthusiasm there with him, grinning away. Sid threw himself into mohawks and crossovers like he’d never been so happy. 

Zhenya’s knee fatigued during the session, but never gave out. He reluctantly chose not to push it at the end and threw in the towel before the zamboni doors opened to signal the end of their ice time. He settled on the bench to stretch and watch Sid stick handle through a mini-course for the last ten minutes. 

Sid looked so disappointed when the zamboni doors clanged open. He straightened out of his stance where he was running the puck through a set of bumpers and gave the doors the most forlorn look. Zhenya stifled a laugh and called across the ice, “Sid, come.”

Sid moseyed back to the bench and through the door like he might never get to return if he left. Zhenya fell into step behind him back to the locker room and nudged his shoulder. 

“Don’t pout. We skate again.”

“Yeah, I know.” Sid still sounded unsure. 

“We have to go home.”

“I just had a couple of things to work on. I could meet you at your place, if they have open ice after the zam gets done.”

“No, you have to come. Naptime. It’s routine.”

Sid shoved through the locker room doors and pulled his jersey off. He looked torn between arguing more and going to his stall to get undressed. Zhenya pounced on the hesitation and crowded into his personal space. 

“You don’t want nap with me?”

Sid’s eyes sharpened on Zhenya like a hawk spotting prey. “I’m not feeling too sleepy, actually. What else you got?”

Zhenya smirked. “Maybe you hungry?”

“Hmm, maybe.”

“Maybe you come over, I can feed.”

Sid smiled with delighted mischief. “I don’t know, G. They’ve got some stuff here, protein shakes and things. Think you can beat that?”

Zhenya knew a challenge when he saw it. He nudged in and kissed Sid right there in the locker room, where they would be surrounded by teammates in two months’ time. When he pulled back, Sid looked pleased.

“Okay,” Sid said, a simple agreement that spoke volumes about Zhenya’s place in his priorities, and reached down to take Zhenya’s hand.


End file.
